


Once in 19th century

by VyraFinn



Series: The Icelandic Studies [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, not historically accurate, not so much about pairings but has lots of family feelings, takes place from 1814 to 1945
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2019-10-06 04:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17338265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VyraFinn/pseuds/VyraFinn
Summary: Denmark has fallen, Norway is held in Stockholm, and Iceland… Iceland has to grow up fast. Thrown suddenly into a life without a brother to follow, Iceland has to hurry up to become what he is meant to be; an independent nation.But instead of running away once Denmark can’t go after him, he stays. For why, he isn’t sure because there is nothing to keep him in Copenhagen now that Norway is gone. Maybe he just can’t leave Denmark like that, maybe he is afraid of being alone. Whatever it is, Iceland stays and learns much more about himself, Denmark, and what it means to be part of family but also an independent nation.Independent, stand-alone part of the Icelandic Studies, and prequel of sort to Higher Education and Top Secret.





	1. Once upon time, 1814

“Brother, are you here?” Iceland asked, slowly and carefully peeking into his brother’s room. Usually he would have run in right away, but lately he had started to be more careful with what he did, because he was going to be independent nation one day, and the last years had took Norway away to the war so he even wasn’t at home so often. It was just few days back that he had come from war, smelling like gunpowder and sweat, and told Iceland with a quiet, weirdly sorrow tone that there was no more war to fight in. Iceland didn’t really know why he sounded so sad about that. Isn’t the peace the best they had? Didn’t he like to be home again instead of on battlefield? Was it because they both, Denmark and Norway, came back tired and hurt? Iceland didn’t ask, but he made sure to do exactly like his brother wanted him to do. He even ate the bad tasting things at dinner and washed his teeth just so Norway would feel better. He didn’t know if it worked.

“Come in, Island”, Norway said quietly. His voice had been very quiet lately. It sounded like he had no breath left to speak louder and he had to focus his energy even for that small task. Sometimes Iceland saw him moving around like an old man with back pain, slow and bent, taking lean on wall. Sometimes he whined softly for pain when he thought nobody heard, but Iceland heard and didn’t know what was wrong. They never were sick or in pain for long, that he knew, so what was wrong with Norway and Denmark then?

“What you are doing?” he asked, curiously walking to the desk. Norway put down the pen and closed his eyes for a moment before answering.

“Writing letters”, he said.

“To who?” Iceland asked and leaned in to see, but Norway moved the sheets away.

“To my people”, he said, “just some information they should have.”

“Should I also write to my people?” Iceland asked, because he often got to send them same or similar messages Norway sent to his people. He had just recently some years back started to handle the connection to his people also in official way, because it was important for him to become what he was supposed to be, Norway had told. Norway had also shown him how to do it and what kind of things to talk about with them. Iceland felt like it was important thing to do and he had learnt his people were happy and eager to talk with him too. They often asked him to come to visit. It sounded like they also wanted him to stay for long time with them.

“I don’t think it is necessary, but you should if you want”, Norway said, “did you had something to tell me?”

“Oh”, Iceland nodded and reached his arms to the Norwegian, “I feel that pain again.”

“The growing pain?”

“Yes”, Iceland nodded, “can you take it away? It feels irritating.” 

“Let me see”, Norway said and held the Icelander’s arms. His touch was just as gently as it had been before, even if his war duties had left marks that hadn’t faded yet and made his skin callused. Iceland waited patiently when the Norwegian moved his hands along the arms and soon the pulsing pain disappeared. Iceland wasn’t sure what it was Norway did, but he guessed it was magic and he was glad his brother was able to take the irritating pain away.

“You are growing fast”, Norway noted, smiling at his brother, “I bet your body will gain few years before this winter ends.”

“Really?” Iceland was excited to think he would grow older. Of course he was already much older by the years he had lived, but having his body grow had lot to do with his improving and development. Along his body, his mind would change and mature to reach its’ true level, and he would be taken seriously by everyone and he would be just as strong as his brother was. It really was something great to wait for. 

“Yes”, Norway nodded and looked at the Icelander, “let me think… Right now it looks like you are 11 years old human boy. I believe that after winter you will look like one of 14 years old.”

“Isn’t that already almost a mature age?” Iceland asked and Norway nodded.

“Quite so”, he said, “but you know things are different with our kind.”

“But you told me that once my body matures, my mind will too and I will be more like an adult”, Iceland said.

“True”, Norway said, “you will start to realize things differently, but your mind is not exactly like humans’ either. I have never seen a human kid of 11 years old who could do things you have been doing with ease for centuries already. Your intelligence and skills will be same they are now, only your way to see things will change.”

“Okay”, Iceland said although he really didn’t understand. But his brother was very wise and knew a lot, so Iceland was sure once he became matured too he would understand. While waiting for that he could just let his brother to take care of things. That strategy had worked for centuries already and should be good enough for the rest of time until he was finally matured and independent.

“Island”, Norway suddenly said, but stared out of the window, “can you promise me something?”

“Yes”, Iceland nodded, “what it is?”

“When I am not here, can you promise to stay strong?” the Norwegian asked, “and keep going?”

“Why? You are not going to war anymore, you said?”

“Just tell me if you can promise that”, Norway said sadly, “it would make me feel better.”

“Of course I promise!” Iceland hurried to say and leaned to hug his brother, “I will take care of everything even if you are not here!”

“Thank you”, Norway whispered and hugged the younger nation back. It was long and tight hug, so Iceland couldn’t see the tears running down the Norwegian man’s cheeks. Norway cried without making any noise, so nobody would notice, but the tears he had never been able to hold back. 

But no matter how hard Norway tried to not show his feelings, at that moment Iceland knew something was very wrong and that his brother knew about it. That confused him because during his long life he had experienced lot of hard moments, but never had Norway reacted like that. He had always fought, not given up. Even when he collapsed so badly Denmark had to come to pick up them, he had stood on his of feet proudly.

“Norge”, Denmark called and stepped into room. He didn’t pay attention to the Icelander more than giving a small look for acknowledge, and Iceland replied to him with even less. For Iceland the Danish nation was just somebody they lived with and honestly they had started that life in hard way. It had took century before they had made a treaty between them, for Norway’s relief, but even if Denmark had took the role of taking care of the Iceland along Norway he really wasn’t doing that. He barely even talked to Iceland, and Iceland preferred it that way. That was why he backed away once Denmark showed up and took Norway’s attention.

“What is it?” Norway asked, but he was cut off by Denmark’s kiss. Iceland looked at them from door. He didn’t like it when the Dane just touched Norway like that without asking, but because Denmark was still standing and not covering on floor in intense pain, Iceland guessed Norway liked to be touched by him. Iceland didn’t understand why. After they came back from war Denmark had been even in worse condition than Norway was and had spent long time just sleeping. Iceland hoped he would have slept bit longer. Years maybe. 

“We should get ready for the meeting”, Denmark said and didn’t even notice the Icelander to sneak away.

“I guess so”, Norway muttered, “not a joy to meet the ones we lost the war to, but what else can we do.”

“It will be fine”, Denmark said and grimaced when the wave of pain went through his body. He had to take lean from the table to stay up, and sweat appeared on his forehead when he fought against the pain. They both knew he was very close to total collapse, and so Norway reached out his hand.

“No”, Denmark hissed through his teeth and avoided the touch, “don’t you dare to take my pain… now.”

“Just a little”, Norway replied, still holding his hand ready, “I can take more. Let me have some of yours.”

“No, keep your magic away”, the Dane said stubbornly and held away until the stroke passed. 

“Danmark”, Norway whispered sadly, but respecting the man’s decision even if it went against his own will,”what have we become?”

“Become?” Denmark asked, somehow getting a smirk on his lips, “haven’t we always been like this? You and me, together through joy and sorrow. So long I have you, I will be just fine.” Norway couldn’t say anything, not when the secret he knew weighted his soul and mind, but he kissed Denmark softly. He stayed quiet when they prepared, taking on the best uniforms they had left. He stayed quiet all the way to the meeting place, and neither Denmark talked so it was the most silent moment there had ever been between them. He didn’t say anything when they heard their sentence for the war they had been too unfortunate to lose. He didn’t say anything when Denmark fell down next to him, the lost union shredding him in to pieces and taking the last power he had had. He didn’t say anything, when Denmark realized what the silence meant. That the Norwegian didn’t talk because he had known what their fate was, and had not dared to say it out loud.

“Norge”, the Dane said, his voice barely audible, “you knew?”

“Sverige warned me”, Norway replied, the silent tears again falling down his cheeks, “so I could say goodbye.”

“Norge. Don’t leave me.”

“I don’t want to”, Norway replied, he too feeling his powers disappearing with the union between their nations. He had been dreaming of regaining his independence already for a while, but never he had thought he would be dragged away from Denmark and end up under another rule instead. He had thought that after while they would have broke their union peacefully and continue to live together as independent nations. That he had thought until Sweden came and told him what the rulers were planning. 

“Please, Norge…” Denmark wasn’t going to stay conscious for long, but he fought against the dark just to see the Norwegian a bit longer. 

“My beloved”, Norway whispered, reaching for the last kiss with the salty taste of their tears, “take care of my brother. I love you.”

“Love you…” Denmark managed to say before the darkness became too much and his eyes rolled back. The men came to take him away and other men showed Norway to another direction. They were soon joined by Sweden, who hadn’t been able to witness the meeting in sake of his own broken heart. Norway had heard that losing Finland had drove the Swedish man into madness, but when they were together it somehow felt easier. At least they understood each other, and once the pain became too much and Norway fainted, Sweden took care he was safe. 

Iceland hid when he saw strange men coming to their home, as he always did. It concerned him that they were carrying unconscious Denmark, but he knew the Dane was a strange one so he guessed he had just done something stupid again. Norway would explain later, Iceland thought and laughed a bit when he imagined about in how big problems the Dane would be once Norway was back. Should teach him to not do stupid things, if Denmark’s skull wasn’t too thick to learn anything. 

So Iceland waited for Norway to come back once the strange men left. First he thought Norway had just got delayed bit because of some duties, then he thought maybe Norway had some errands to ran and he would not be home before dinner. If that was the case, Denmark should get up to prepare the dinner, but Iceland sneaked past his room and noted the man was still in deep sleep. The dinner time came and passed and Norway still hadn’t arrived so Iceland started to wonder maybe there were problems on road so he waited bit more. He even sat in the hall past his sleeping time, but nobody came home. 

Iceland was starting to feel worried. Something had to be wrong if Norway wasn’t coming and Denmark was still sleeping. Iceland had tried to wake the Dane up once he got too hungry but nothing seemed to get a reaction out of Denmark. He just slept, only the movements of his chest telling he was alive at all. Finally, after the midnight had passed without Norway, Iceland ran to his brother’s room. He didn’t really know what he was expecting to find, maybe a hint of when Norway was coming back, but instead he found an envelope with his name written on it. He knew it was Norway’s handwriting so he took the envelope, opened it, and read the whole letter.

He understood all of it. 

He didn’t want to, because not knowing was sometimes better than knowing, but he did read the letter and for the first time he felt like he understood everything clearly and he knew what Norway was trying to explain him with all the words he had written down. That was why the young Icelandic nation sat down in middle of the empty room and cried. He cried for losing his brother and for that he knew it was time for him to grow up fast but was afraid to do so. He was very scared that night but nobody was there to comfort him, and that was the very first lesson he got of what it meant to be an independent nation. It was lonely. 


	2. Once upon realization

“But Puffin”, the Icelandic nation said with almost whinnying tone, “I don’t know anything about… anything!” The bird he was talking with gave a sharp look at the nation sitting on the bed.

“Kiddo”, he said, “did I really fly over the freaking ocean to just hear you say you can’t do the stuff?” Iceland thought about that for a while and nodded then. It had been few weeks since his life had been turned upside down. He had just laid in bed in his brother’s room, kept awake by nightmares and scary imagines of his possible future, and losing the sense of time and place. It hadn’t been until Puffin’s arrive that he had got up and forced himself back to action.

“Kid”, the puffing sighed, “you be fine.”

“But I don’t know how!” Iceland said, starting to feel frustrated about having the same argument going on already for hours without anything new. Denmark hadn’t showed up yet, and Iceland had pretty much forgot the Danish nation even existed, so he hadn’t been checking on him. He had noted that the house was quiet and looked like nobody had been around for a long time, so he was quite sure Denmark had left somewhere.

“Just be yourself!” the bird yelled back, “you are a personification!”

“But I don’t know how!” Iceland yelled again, “Noregur never had time to tell me it all!”

“You should be natural with it!”

“I am not!”

“Just try!”

“I have been trying!” Iceland yelled and crossed his arms, “it is not that easy, Puffin!” The bird seemed to not believe the young nations distress, not even when Iceland’s voice and expression showed anger and utter confusion with deep worry for the future. Tears started to once again gather on small nation’s eyes when he thought about being all alone.

“Okay, okay”, the puffin said and flew to sit on Icelander’s head, “I am helping you, okay. You will be fine.”

“Really?” Iceland asked with now much lower voice that was barely more than whisper. He looked around in his brother’s old room, hoping that Norway would just show up and tell him that it all had been a stupid joke. It was still useless hope. Norway wasn’t going back and the dust had already started to gather on the furniture and few items in the room. He hadn’t even taken much with him, although he had used a moment to carefully place everything on their own place and make the room organized. Somehow it made Iceland feel even worse. That his brother had planned to go and prepared for it, but still had only left a letter behind for Iceland to read and nothing more.

“Yes”, Puffin said, “you just do as I say and you will do great.”

“Okay”, Iceland muttered, swiping off the few tears, “what we do then?”

“First we gotta get some food in you”, the bird said, “do you like fish?”

“Yes!”

“Good”, Puffin nodded, “I will just make a quick fly out and come back with dinner just in a moment. You wait here.”

“Wait!” Iceland said before the bird flew off, “I think there is food in the kitchen. We can check that first.”

“Why fish would be in the kitchen?”

“That is where we store food so we don’t need to spend time to looking for it everyday”, Iceland explained. Puffin seemed to be slightly puzzled about that, but was eager to skip the fishing trip so he followed the small nation out the room and down the stairs. The whole house was dark and cold, and the air smelled stale. Just like in Norway’s room, the dust had started to gather all around the place and there were no trails on the floor hinting on any living creature roaming the hallways. The clock on staircase had stop ticking once it had been failed to wind again, but the paintings were all on their right places and nothing had been moved around. Iceland briefly wondered how cold it was, but once the food had been mentioned he had realized he really was hungry, and right then his demanding belly was taking all his attention. After all, he hadn’t eaten or drink for weeks, something that would have been harmful if he was mortal and even for immortal it caused quite lot of discomfort. He had just ignored all that in his crying and missing.

Iceland pushed the windows open, letting some fresh air and light in. He didn’t know how much the time was or exactly which day they were living, but there was still snow on the ground and the sun was hanging low, so he guessed it was late winter and afternoon. He used a moment to just stare out, wonder how the world had just go on while his life got pulled into pieces, and then he stepped away as it was cold outside and he was hungry.

Most of the food had got bad so Iceland had to do carefully inspections to figure out what was still edible and what was not. That was luckily something he could do fine just by himself so soon he had managed to put up small feast of dried fish and meat, hard bread with butter, fermented milk, and some pickled vegetables that he wasn’t sure what it was but it smelled and tasted alright. The puffin sat on table and watched the young nation to wolf down everything, and then bit later he watched when the said young nation ran outside to throw up.

“Are you dying, kid?” he asked.

“No”, Iceland replied, heaving near the snow piles that had fell from the roof, “it was just too much food, I think.”

“How that has anything to do with this?”  
“I don’t know”, Iceland muttered and used snow to clean his mouth, “Noregur would know…” His eyes started to water again so the bird rushed to hop on his back.

“Hey now”, he said, “I told you. We gonna be just fine. Let’s get inside and find some clothes for you. You got such a weak feathers for this weather.”

“I don’t have any feathers”, Iceland muttered sadly, but pulled himself back together with a deep sigh, “okay, let’s go.” They wandered up to Iceland’s room and soon the young nation was clothed with the normal day clothes instead of the night suit he had used until then. He played with the shirt’s long hem, disappointed that instead of the old clothes being too small, they were actually sitting looser on him now after so long period without food. His body hasn’t aged at all. He had hoped it could have done that and given him a sign that he was ready to be grown up and take his rightful place as personification.

“What now?” Iceland asked once he was ready.

“Then we gotta find out what is happening in the world”, the puffin said, “I wouldn’t care at all, but all that stuff humans do seems to affect your kin kinda a lot so that sounds like a good idea to keep an eye on.”

“Oh right”, Iceland said and frowned, “but there isn’t anybody to ask.” His usual source of information was indeed Norway and the letters he received from his land. Additionally he sometimes heard things when he wandered out, but right then he didn’t feel comfortable with facing the world out there.

“Don’t you have those papers people read to know things?” Puffin asked and after brief confused wondering Iceland realized what he meant.

“Newspapers!” he said and headed down the stairs. Normally the newspaper and other post would be delivered at their door, but he wasn’t sure how long time ago the “normal” had been and if the deliveries still came. It was still worth to check and for his surprise he found a neatly pile of folded newspapers and letters on the table next to floor. Whoever was tasked with bringing the post to the house, had probably been told to take it in and not ever wander deeper into house or question why it looked like nobody lived there anymore. Seemed like they had decided to follow that instructions. Iceland briefly wondered how long Denmark was planning to stay away from home, but he didn’t waste too much time for that thinking. After all, he had never been too interested about that the Danish nation did.

The pile was too high for Iceland to carry but he picked up few things that looked most promising and took them to the reading room, that usually had been used either as teaching room for Iceland or kind of leisure room whenever Norway and Denmark just wanted to sit down and talk. Right then however, the room was just as empty and dead as was the whole house. Iceland dropped all the stuff on the table and sat down on the reading chair, swiping bit of dust off.

He paid little of attention on dates, after all he couldn’t be sure when the latest one had come in, but at least he got confirmation for his estimation of it being late winter. Iceland read carefully, focusing on everything that could affect his country. It took hours to go through everything, and he only stopped for fetching more post to read, lighting up small gas light once the night fell and to get some food that he this time ate slowly and in small portions.

“This doesn’t look very good, Puffin”, the Icelander said once he had got as good view of the situation than he just could. The bird, who had been sleeping on window sill, glanced at the nation and did something that was closest thing to shrug he could do.

“Who cares”, he said, “you are okay. We will just figure out rest later.”

“But it seems I am still not independent”, Iceland said and frowned, “I should be vassal to Noregur. I have always been since he found no matter what, but now they handed Norwegian land under Swedish crown and my land is still counted to be Danish.”

“So?”

“So I should stay with Danmörk and do whatever he says”, Iceland ended the explanation with frustrated sigh and desperate expression, “I… I just got handed to another… Just like Noregur…”

“Hey, come on now”, Puffin said and flew closer, “it is not that bad like who cares about whose rule you are supposed to be? It is not like he owns you or something.”

“It kind of is like that”, Iceland muttered, leaning his face on his hands.

“Whatever”, the bird said, “you and me. We are gonna get out from here now. Like, do you see any Danes around here? Clearly he doesn’t even want to have you if he didn’t bother to take you with wherever he disappeared to.”

“I guess…”

“It is his loss, really”, Puffin continued, “if he is not gonna check on his vassals in few months he clearly doesn’t deserve them. Ísland, you don’t need to be the nice kid, sitting down and waiting for the lord to show up when he fancies. The guy is not here, it is perfect time to run and never look back.”

“You are probably right”, Iceland said and kicked the chair legs with his feet while thinking, “but it is late now. Better to sleep overnight first. Noregur always says the travels are best to start at the first light of morning.”

“Yeah, whatever”, Puffin replied, “what happened that man anyway?”

“I don’t know exactly”, Iceland said quietly and looked down, “it sounds like they lost a war and now he has to stay somewhere else.”

“What a bullshit”, the bird said, “well, you don’t need him. You got me.”

“Okay”, Iceland said although he really felt like he needed Norway.

******

Next morning was beautiful and Iceland waked up early with the excitement in his mind. He was still unsure and he still missed his brother, but after the night’s sleep Puffin’s plan sounded good and for sure moving on would be a great idea leading him to the fame. Denmark, his so called ruling nation, was not even there and seemed like he wasn’t coming back any time soon, so Iceland could as well take the fate in his own hands and make his brother proud by showing that he really could be independent.

He packed his bag carefully exactly like Norway had showed him, and while he did that, he reminded himself about all the things the Norwegian had taught him. It was quite lot of things so it kept him busy until he was done with everything and was ready to go.

“Finally”, Puffin said when the young nation walked to the hall, “I was gonna fly without you.”

“But you promised to wait”, Iceland frowned.

“Yeah, yeah”, the bird said, “so you done now? Ready to start whole new life?”

“I guess”, Iceland replied and looked around the house that has been his home for centuries. It felt almost strange now that it was quiet and nobody was there. Iceland briefly wondered if somebody would come and live in the house after he was gone or if Denmark was ever coming back. He didn’t know where the Dane had gone, but it was clear nobody had been around the house for weeks, maybe months, and Denmark’s presence has faded almost to nothing so it was clear that he wasn’t in the house. Iceland was ready to forget about him, just like Denmark had forget about him.

“You know, maybe we can even find that brother of yours”, Puffin said, sitting on top of Iceland’s head when the nation opened the front door, “if you want.”

“That would be nice”, Iceland said, finally a small smile appearing on his lips, “wait! I forgot something!”

“What now?”

“I need a sword or bow or something”, Iceland explained, “Noregur always kept weapon with him when he traveled. For protection. I need to have one too.”

“Okay”, the bird sighed and jumped on side table, “make it quick. I will wait here.” Iceland nodded and rushed up the stairs and to his brother’s room. Norway had left everything behind, including his weapons that he had carefully cleaned and polished before placing against walls and on table. Iceland looked around in room, wondering which one he should take. He quickly ruled out bow and spears because he really didn’t know how to use those, and for his disappointment axes and swords were too heavy for him to carry. So at the end the decision was easy as only a knife on the table was something he could somewhat use. The blade was the length of his forearm and the sheat poked his leg when he walked but he was sure he was going to grow soon so then it didn’t matter much.

He took the last look around, cherishing all the good memories he had from that rooms. The late nights with listening his brother’s stories, waiting for Norway to come back to home from his duties, eating breakfast early in the morning so they could make it to the sea before sunrise, and sneaking to sleep in his brother’s bed whenever the storm outside got too much. Funny enough, Iceland had never seen his brother sleeping in his bed unless he was going to sneak in, but he assumed it was because Norway was adult and needed very little of sleep.

“Goodbye then”, he said to the empty room and stepped out, closing the door after him because Norway preferred to hold his room’s door closed and Iceland could as well respect that. He was going to turn and walk down back to the hall, but then he heard a weird noise coming further away.

At that moment he wasn’t sure what it was, but later he would say it sounded like a mix of painful moan and sigh. Like somebody taking a deep breath and then letting it all with sobbing. It wasn’t loud noise but in the empty house it sounded strong and strange, startling the young nation.

“Just the house whinnying”, he told himself, but then he heard the noise again and was sure that it had to come out from a living. For a moment he was going to leave anyway, but then his curiosity took over and lead him to follow the dark hallway.

He ended up front of Denmark’s room. The door was ajar, but there was no light or sounds coming out. The noise had stopped while ago, but Iceland was sure this was the room it had came from. He listened for a while, feeling scared about what he was going to find but also reminding himself that this was his home. It was probably just some small animal that had got in couldn’t find way out. So he pushed the door open, stepping in carefully.

“Hey, whatever you are”, Iceland whispered, “I am just going to help you, okay?” He didn’t got any reply but he saw something laying on the bed. The light from window wasn’t enough to make the figure clear, but Iceland took few steps closer. He was only arm’s reach away when the noise sounded again, and Iceland realized Denmark had never left the house after all.

“Danmörk?” he called but there was no reply. The Dane was pale, too pale to be alive, but his chest raised with breath. The bed sheets were damp and messy like he had been rolling around but also stayed there for a long time.

“Ísland?” Puffin’s voice startled the young nation who had been staring the Dane in the bed, without knowing what to do, “what is taking so long?”

“Puffin!” Iceland said, “I found Danmörk! Something is wrong with him.” The bird took one look at the man and didn’t seem to be worried at all.

“Yeah. He is dead”, the bird said nonchalantly, “great. Now we know he is not gonna come after us. You will be a free man, Ísland.”

“No, he is not”, Iceland said, touching the cold skin to find heartbeat, “see he breaths and his heart is beating so he is living… I just don’t know… I think he can’t wake up.”

“So what? It is not our problem.”

“But…”, Iceland bit his lip. He didn’t really had reason to stay. After all he wanted to be independent and it was Denmark who was the one stopping him. It should have been easy decision to leave, but somehow it was not.

“What?”

“Just…”, Iceland muttered and looked around until his eyes stopped at opened letter on the bed, “let me read that one. It is Noregur’s handwriting.”

“Whatever”, the bird muttered, clearly impatient but letting the nation to do whatever he wanted. Iceland picked up the letter, noting that most of the text was smudgy like somebody had dropped water on it. He could still read most of it and when he was done, the expression on his face was serious but also sad.

“Puffin.”

“What?”

“I can’t go.”

“What you mean?” the bird asked almost angrily, “of course you can go. We got a plan, Ísland!”

“No, I can not”, Iceland replied, looking at the Dane, “I just can not.”


	3. Once in Stockholm

“What a shining cage they gave me”, Norway muttered to himself looking around the room without even hint of excitement. It had been few weeks since he had got thrown in and since then he had had no contact to the world outside of his room, if the servant girl and guard bringing him meal three times per day wasn’t counted. The girl however was either not capable of speaking or was strictly told not to take contact to the prisoner, because all she did was to come in when the guard opened the door, give the nation a scared look and then hurry to place the tray on the table and taking the previous tray away. It all really took only few seconds so Norway didn’t count it as a real social interaction.

The room, or prison as Norway more thought it, was a small with only the most necessary furniture. They had given him a narrow bed, a table, a chair and even a small bookshelf that unfortunately was empty. The window was barred with metal, stopping the nation from getting out, and the heavy wooden door was locked all the time. It wasn’t a real prison but clearly the room was planned to be a holding cell for any high ranked person ordered into house arrest. Now it served as a prison to personification of the nation of Norway, a war trophy..

Norway had not been given much to do. There were no books to read, no paper to write on or any other ways to pass time. All he could do was just to be there and wait, counting the time passing and forgetting he still existed. He wondered if that was the plan. If they thought that by pushing the personification into shadows and letting everybody forgot about him would erase him from existence and make it easier to have his people to bend their knees. Too bad for them, they were not right. Norway knew well that so long he felt he was living, his nation was well too, and right then his biggest discomfort was the fact that he was bored, missed his family, and still feeling faint pain from breaking of the union. He didn’t know what was happening and the boring routines made his mind dimmer, but he was far from giving up.

A sound from behind the door warned him about arriving meal, and out of habit Norway moved his shirt to cover the healing bruises on his arms. For his disappointment his body was healing slightly slower than it should have, or at least it felt like that, but still most of the wounds from the battle few months ago had already faded away.

“Good morning”, he said without looking at the door. He had an idea of how the time passed from the amount of light coming in and the items he got for his meal. Breakfast was always smaller than lunch and dinner. Sundays he received berries or piece of apple with his dinner, which he assumed was somebody in kitchen taking a pity of the mysterious prisoner, or maybe they didn’t even know for who the meal was and just prepared same for everybody.

The girl’s hands were shaking when she made small curtsey and hurried to clean up the table. She avoided looking at the nation, which Norway was somewhat grateful about. He preferred to be feared instead of openly ogled like a rare animal in zoo.

“You, the guard”, Norway said, still not looking at the humans, “how long I still need to wait?” The reply didn’t come right away, but the Norwegian was more than familiar with waiting and proud enough to not beg for answer.

“No visitors today”, the guard finally grunted. Norway didn’t reply anything for that or showed any emotions while he waited the servant girl to finish setting the breakfast and then more and less run out the room.

“Very well”, he then said to himself when the door was closed and locked again. He pushed his thumb nail into the soft wood of his chair, leaving a small mark next to others. Then he reached for the food, picking up piece of bread which he started to eat by breaking it into small pieces with his fingers and not caring about the mess he did. For the first few days he had not been eating much, mostly because of the broken union with Denmark hurting him too much but also for a protest. Once the pain had faded, he had started to eat and make plans again, but there wasn’t much he could do.

He knew very well that such a weak things as iron bars and locks could not hold him. He had more power than that and a simple wish from him could melt iron and burn the wood. But Norway was not an idiot. He knew very well how the human rulers would react for the captured personification escaping like that. They would think it meant the people were going on uproar. That there would be revolution. They would react with violence and so much innocent blood would be marking the ground only because Norway decided to not sit still and wait for his chance. He knew his people were unprepared. They would all be slaughtered, and so he didn’t use his power and skills to get out.

All the other means of magic were also impossible. He knew there were eyes on him even if nobody really was in the room, and the forest creatures didn’t come to cities, so there were very little he could do. In fact, his only hope was Sweden and he hated even the idea of getting help from the Swedish man.

Norway hadn’t seen the Swedish nation since his arrival to Stockholm. He had been mostly unconscious by then, but he knew it had been Sweden had been there and still was in the city. Not even once Sweden had tried to contact him, but Norway wasn’t sure why it was so. Not that he cared much either. Sweden had helped him during the travel, but Norway held no warm feelings toward the man he had decided to target all his hate to. He wanted to meet Sweden, but not for asking help or pledging the loyalty.

  
****   
It took weeks more before anything happened again. The chair’s armrest was full of small nail marks and he was already moving to count on other armrest, when his waiting finally ended. It was around midday and he had already received his lunch so the door opening surprised him. Three guards stepped in, one carrying heavy chains and other two armed with their weapons ready. The fourth man followed behind and did not step in until Norway was chained.

“Exciting”, the Norwegian said with a bored tone, slightly testing the metal holding his hands behind his back, “are you cowards finally trying to execute me? I can save your time. It is not going to work.”

“Be quiet”, the clearly higher ranked man said, “you are to be relocated.”

“Oh, and I just settled down here”, Norway replied dryly, “why the chains and guards? My legs work fine.” All the three guards were on alert and clearly expecting the Norwegian to try something.

“Stories from battlefields go far”, the fourth man replied shortly and waved the guards to get to work.

“What a pleasure to learn my fame is well known”, Norway muttered and let the guards to push him out and along. He didn’t bother with talking and nobody seemed to think they needed to update their prisoner of the current situation, so when they finally stopped at one door located clearly in the better parts of the castle, Norway still didn’t know what was happening.

“The service here could use improvements”, the Norwegian muttered once he had been shoved into a dark room and the door was closed behind him, “well, isn’t it the kingdom of Sverige himself? What a honour to finally be granted the audience with you.” The figure sitting on the floor in the farthest corner moved slightlyn when Norway said his name, but that was all recognition he was getting.

“Go away”, Sweden grunted with voice hoarse either from yelling or not being used for a long time. Norway wasn’t sure which one it was.

“That seems to be an impossible wish to fulfill”, Norway said, “as I am chained and the door is locked. Would you wish me to jump out the window? The fall might not kill me.” He couldn’t see much of the room without light, but the bit he saw didn’t look got.

“Just go.”

“Any other wishes?” Norway asked, frustration getting clearer in his voice. He got his answers by the knife thrown at him. It was just his quick reflexed and experience that helped him to avoid getting hurt. The knife had been thrown with enough power for it to stuck on the wall behind Norway.

“Go.”

“What in hell is wrong with you?” Norway asked angrily and made no move to leave. Partly because he couldn’t just leave when he was chained and guards were behind the door, but mostly because the Swedes attitude was annoying him greatly.

“Leave me alone!”

“Oh so this is how you want to play”, Norway yelled back, “come then! Make me leave, you coward!” Sweden grunted angrily and got up, swaying slightly when he tested his balance and lunged at the Norwegian. Norway, even with his hands chained behind back and weak after the broken union, was a skillful fighter and such weak try from Sweden wasn’t hard to dodge.

“Attacking a prisoner. You really have fell low, aren’t you, Sverige?” Norway said and dodged another attack aimed to his head, “what the hell is wrong with you?” Sweden didn’t reply but now that he was closer, Norway could see the wild look in the man’s eyes and it wasn’t the first time he saw that. The way how the Swede acted and spoke, and how the room was destroyed and the man looked like he hadn’t even bothered to bathe in weeks, showed Norway that the rumours had been true. Sweden has lost his mind or at least part of it.

“Stop, it is me”, Norway said and jumped to side to avoid to be pushed against the wall. He knew it was too late to talk to Sweden, but he did that anyway. He had seen Sweden to be like that before too, and knew very well that the only way to snap him out of it was to either fight until he was too tired to continue or knock him out. Norway was more than happy to beat up the Swede, who wasn’t really to be blamed about the current situation but also happened to be the one representing the very thing that had ruined Norway’s life. He was all okay with directing all his anger toward the Swede, and the more it hurt the better. He didn’t want to stop, he didn’t want Sweden to stop. He only told the man stop because that was something one normally would say, but he really didn’t mean it.

Fighting with arms chained wasn’t the easiest thing, but Norway did the best he could. It helped that Sweden had let the madness to take a control so there was next to none planning and tactics. It was all just hitting and using power without any control, and Norway took advance on that. First he only dodged, letting the Swede hit walls and furniture instead of him. Sweden didn’t seems to even notice that his hands were bleeding after while or that none of his attacks had actually found their target.

Norway waited until Sweden’s movements started to slow down, and then he changed his tactic. He still did careful work to avoid getting any hits because in his weaker state he couldn’t stand so much beating, but he also shared his own and did it much better than Swede. It was ridiculous really, he thought when kicking Sweden just after dodging the fist coming toward his face, usually Sweden was much better but now it was all ridiculously easy. Norway wondered how it had ever been even possible for that man to win any fights.

The fight took hours. Both man keeping up, one for madness and one for pity revenge. Norway knew he was getting tired and when Sweden finally managed to hit his shoulder hard enough to send him against the wall, he knew he had to stop the fight soon if he wanted to survive it without too much damage. He didn’t care much about how much damage the Swede was going to get. It was honestly least of his worries and he secretly enjoyed every bruise and cut he had managed to deliver. But he couldn’t keep up much longer, no matter how much he was enjoying the beating up time, so he had to stop the fight.

With a small leap he moved to side just when the Sweden was attacking again, and stuck his leg between the man’s feet. The movement made also him to lose the balance but so far that the Swede was down, Norway was okay with getting his own share of pain too.

“Oh, why can’t you just crack your skull open and die?” the Norwegian muttered angrily when the Swede still tried to get up and continue the fight. It was a wonder that nobody had come to room to stop them, but Norway assumed that this wasn’t the first the Swede had gone over the edge during past few weeks, and the humans were scared for a reason. Only a total idiot would voluntary face an anger of a strong man like Sweden.

Norway muttered angrily when he quickly threw himself on the Swede who was struggling to collect enough strength to get up but still far from giving up.

“Fucker”, Norway muttered just before hitting their heads together. That last blow was enough to make Sweden to lost his consciousness, but it turned out to be that last straw Norway could take either. He has just time to feel bit of joy for defeating the one man he liked to blame, and then he too fell on the floor.

*****

When Norway woke up everything was quiet. He laid on a soft bed, faint smell of dried roses from the clean sheets around him, and a fresh sea wind bringing sense of salt and the old, long-gone freedom to his mind. His whole body protested against waking up, begging him to fall back asleep and heal before attempting anything more, but Norway’s mind had already waken and he felt the familiar pain he had felt since he had left Denmark’s house. So he opened his eyes and glared at the man sitting on chair next to bed.

“Morning”, Sweden muttered, the rage from yesterday gone but still hiding with the madness under the calm, emotionless look. Norway took the first thing his hand found and threw it at the man. For his joy, the aim was good but for his disappointment the object was a pillow and so did very little of damage on the Swede.

“Go to die”, Norway said.

“I hope I could”, Sweden said back and looked away. His eyes were tired and all the old glory gone. Once, just months ago, he had looked proud and powerful just as his land had been, but now he was only an old man that hadn’t seen bath for weeks and had very little will of life left.

“Maybe I will find something sharper to throw at you and fulfill your wish”, Norway said.

“I took your chains off.”

“Much obliged. It will be easier to murder you now.” Sweden shrugged, clearly not caring much about the threats or being worried for his life.

“Norge”, he said after while, “I am sorry.”

“A sorry excuse of man, you mean”, the Norwegian muttered and got up to sit. He inspected his new wounds, noting that they were all healing slow but not too slow that he should be worried about it. Some the biggest ones had been dressed and taken care off, but right then the Norwegian wasn’t in mood of appreciating the gesture.

“Probably”, Sweden muttered, once again not even trying to argue or giving Norway any emotions, “I didn’t know you were held in as a prisoner.”

“So you thought that they would just take over my land, give me the best room and decide that pampering me would be definitely the best way to ensure that all the Norwegian would be turned into obeying Swedish citizens in no time”, Norway said with a glare, “fuck you.”

“I know you are upset, but…”

“Upset is quite underestimating”, Norway cut him off, “I was taken away from my home, traded like a second best milking cow only because your people just had to have something to compensate the loss of Fi…”

“Don’t say his name!” Sweden barked, finally letting anger to overcome his facade. Norway snorted and ignored the pain from his arm that the Swede had grasped.

“What? Are you so guilty you can’t even hear his name?” he mocked the Swedish man, “if you could just have been stronger and not get involved to that stupid war we would both be much happier right now.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“But you still think it was”, Norway said and knew he had hit the right spot. He knew it wasn’t smart to anger the man who now was ruling over him, but he wanted that anger. He wanted to feel pain just so that the other pain would be overcame and he would forget all for a moment. He needed to suffer and he needed to punish somebody for that all. Sweden was a perfect target for that.

“You two caused it all”, Sweden said the anger getting stronger in his voice, “if you could have just keep Danmark bit more entertained in bedroom maybe he would have ignored the war invitations.”

“And maybe if Finland had been bit more like a perfect, obeying housewife in that little game you were pulling, they would have let you keep him”, Norway hissed, welcoming all the anger he had, “your little toy, wasn’t he?”

“Shut up!”

“What, you want me to take the little wife’s role now?” the Norwegian continued, “so you too think you can just snatch me and force me to be him? The great Swedish empire can’t just live without someone to look at him all cutely?”

“Don’t talk about him like that”, Sweden said , his hold on the Norwegian’s arm getting tighter and the other hand shaking like he was barely holding himself from hitting the man in front of him.

“Is the truth too much then?”

“If I was you”, Sweden said, leaning closer until their faces were almost touching, “I would just keep my mouth shut, Dane’s whore.” All the pain Norway had wanted disappeared right then, leaving only the emptiness he had tried to escape from. The two words made him angrier than ever and wishing that he could hurt the Swede, but they also made him give up the battle. With that chaos inside of him he leaned away and spat on the Swede’s face. Sweden didn’t even flinch.

“I hate you”, Norway said quietly with a voice full of pure anger.

“Good”, Sweden replied and moved away, “they decided I am to be your guard from now on, so you are not allowed to leave this room and you have to stay with me all the time.”

“I will murder you in your sleep.”

“With all respect”, Sweden said, looking away to calm himself down again, “I wish your attempt will be successful.” Norway didn’t reply. He had got enough pain for a while and desired to not feel more, so he settled to just quietly stare at the Swede, who did his best to ignore the Norwegian even existed. Neither said it out loud, but right then they both wondered why they had been calling each other brothers so long time ago. Such times didn’t even feel real right then.


	4. Once alone

“You are out of your mind”, the puffin said with disapproval when the young nation did nothing to leave the house, “if you just run now, all the problems would be gone!”

“I told you. I can’t leave”, Iceland said, frowning when he once again read through the newspapers. He had done it already once but now he was more careful and looking for completely different things. He also paid much more attention on the letters that had not been addressed to him, but which he assumed was alright for him to read since the man whose name was written on the envelopes was right then unable to read anything.

“That is bullshit”, the bird replied, “the Dane is dead and he doesn’t own you anyway.”

“I am his vassal now”, Iceland replied with slightly bored tone just as somebody would after replying to the same questions for the tenth time, “and he is not dead. He is just… Well, I don’t know what he is, but he is not dead anyway.”

“Dying then”, Puffin said.

“I don’t think he is dying”, Iceland replied with a slight frown, “Noregur told me we can’t just die like that, and his people are still here. If he was dying, he should be the last Dane in the whole world. He is not the last. I saw at least three outside on the road just half an hour ago. They seemed to be doing fine.”

“How you know they were fine?” the bird asked, “you are not even a human.”

“I guessed”, Iceland shrugged, “they didn’t cry. We cry when we are sad, so I am pretty sure humans do that too.”

“Whatever”, the puffin muttered, “what are you even doing?”

“Trying to figure out what is going on.”

“I thought you already did that”, the bird said, “you used hours for those papers.”

“Yeah, but now I am figuring out different things”, Iceland explained, “and I am slow. I can’t really read Danish.”

“The fuck, it is another language?”

“Yes”, Iceland nodded, “Noregur taught me to read but I guess he thought it is better to take other languages first and… we didn’t have time for Danish before he left.”

“Why don’t you people speak the same fucking language?” the bird asked.

“I don’t know”, Iceland gave an honest answer, “do all puffins speak the same language?”

“Hell if I know. I am the only one that can speak”, the bird replied and moved his wings, “well I gotta go to do stuff. No need to waste time here if you not gonna run now.”

“Okay”, Iceland said. He was already used for his companion to have his own things that he rarely spoke about. It was already strange that he had stayed with Iceland that many weeks in middle of winter, which he would usually be away from the first snow fall to the first day of spring. Iceland had asked few times what the bird actually did all the winter months, but the answer had always been vague “going to sea”, so at the end Iceland assumed it was just something the birds had to do.

“Don’t get your ass fucking kicked”, Puffin said for a goodbye and used his beak to open the window hatch.

“Noregur told me that kind of language is very bad and I should not listen to you when you use it”, Iceland muttered, “you should just wish me good well-being instead.”

“Yeah, what-fucking-ever”, the bird replied, “see ya in spring. If you live.”

“Okay, bye”, Iceland said and got up to close the window after Puffing, because although he could open windows fine just by himself, he never bothered closing it after leaving and the winter evening was too cold to keep windows open. Iceland had tried to set a fire to the big fire place in the corner, but despite of him trying his best, the logs still stayed unburning. He could use candles and gas lights just fine, but something about the fireplace just disagreed to work with him and he wasn’t sure what it was. He had done everything just like he has seen his brother doing millions of times. First clean the fireplace, then collect sufficient amount of logs in it, and lastly one had to stare the fireplace a moment and so the fire would start to warm up the room. Iceland wasn’t sure which part he did wrong because no matter how he stared the fireplace, cleaned and logs stacked in, the fire didn’t appear. At the end he had even tried to set the logs in fire just like he lit the candles but all he had got was faint amount of smoke and disappointment. After that he had decided he could survive bit of cold with blankets and candles alone.

Iceland was trying to do careful work with the letters and newspapers. This time instead of figuring out what was going on with his and Norway’s lands, he focused more on Denmark and trying to find out why the man was sleeping like dead. He didn’t know much of things, but he did know things like that didn’t just happen. There had to be a reason. Norway had never taught him much about things like that. The Norwegian had always thought he would be there when Iceland had need for that kind of information and he had never take a count of ending up being the price of war. So Iceland did whatever he could from the small, briefly mentioned things and the books he had found from Norway’s room.

Those books were not about their own kin, as nobody had ever wrote book about them or been allowed to do so, but about medicines and sickness in humans. Most of it was useless, Iceland thought, but Norway had made markings all over the text so apparently he had been studying the topic for some reason. Iceland assumed the markings were for something that could be applied for them too, so he read only those part. It was lot about treating wounds, curing infections and fixing various things from broken bones to dislocated joints. Iceland was already losing his hope when he finally turned the last pages of the last book on his pile. The markings there were very small and barely visible, but the chapter’s title itself was enough for Iceland to decide to read it all.

“Deep sleep and the death”, he read out loud and briefly wondered what such a thing had to do with them when they couldn’t even die. He soon understood more once he started to read and noticed the markings giving him hints about where to focus. It took him only a moment to realize that the description of the deep sleep perfectly fitted the Dane’s current condition. With hurry he moved to read more on how to cure it, but he only found a few sentences stating that such illness was not curable and would sooner or later lead to patient’s death. Norway had crossed over that part, and Iceland hoped that didn’t mean anything bad. At least logically thinking it meant that the said part didn’t ably for them, but Iceland couldn’t be sure. He just really hoped.

There were no more added comments in the book to help the Icelander. Iceland could only assume that curing deep sleep was something Norway knew how to do but had decided not to write it down, possibly because humans tended to be suspicious about somebody knowing more than then and the risk was too big. With frustrated sigh Iceland closed the book and once again hoped his brother could be there. How was he, a lonely and depend nation, supposed to take care of everything? He wasn’t ready for this all, and he knew it. Too bad, there wasn’t anybody he could rely on to solve the problems.

“Just do like Noregur would do”, Iceland muttered a reminder to himself and glanced over all the papers and books he had scattered over table. That definitely was something his brother would do, so many times he had wound him working just like this all the papers around him and furiously writing down whatever he had found.

Iceland picked up piece of paper and used few minutes to find an ink pen. Then he just sat there with a pen in his hand and empty paper front of his, thinking what he even was going to write. He needed a plan, but for what he really needed it? Nobody had told him planing things and living was this difficult.

With slight frustration he wrote “DANMÖRK” on the middle of paper and under it he wrote “deep sleep”. After brief thinking he added “NOREGUR” with under text “captured”, and his own name accompanied with “alone”. It was a start, he thought when he looked at the paper, he had been told everything started with making account of the current situation. It was a start at least, he decided and made few ink stains over the paper when he moved the pen. Usually he would have felt bad about that, after all penmanship was one of the things Norway had taught him, but right then he had so many other things to think about so he didn’t even notice. Neither did he notice that just bit later his arm smudged the stains to make even more mess.

His work had took time and the evening had already arrived long time ago, so Iceland stretched his aching back and set the pen down with a deep sigh. He had used good time to stare at the paper and think about anything else to add, but his mind was empty and he didn’t know much. He glanced at the dark window and thought that maybe the next days would bring new ideas in his mind. It was already late after all, and he was tired. So he got up, limping few steps because his legs had got numb after sitting so long time without moving. He shivered bit for the cold and carefully put off all the candles and gas lights, leaving only one to help him navigate the dark manor.

With light steps he walked the halls he had known for a centuries but which now felt unfamiliar once his brother wasn’t with him. He made his way up to the bed rooms, hesitating a moment at his own room’s door before continuing farther. He had never been afraid the Dane, not really, but still his heart picked up speed when he got closer to the room he rarely went in to.

“Danmörk?” he called from the door, raising the candle higher so he could see the room better. Denmark was still sleeping just like he had been earlier that day, his skin pale and only small rise of chest giving any sign of living. Iceland didn’t get reply, but he hadn’t really expected one. It would have been way too easy for the Dane just wake up by himself like that.

Iceland walked closer, not really knowing what he should do but also feeling he really should do something. At the end, he reached his hand and pressed his fingers on the Dane’s wrist. It took him for a while to find the heartbeat but eventually he did, though it was still faint. Norway had told him the heart would stop when one died, but the Dane’s heart still beat. Even if it was broken.

“Good night”, Iceland whispered and left Denmark alone again.

******

  
“...Usually my patients do have contract with me before they fall ill”, an annoyed voice sounded in the hall after the opening door had startled the young nation sitting in the study room. Iceland froze, listening carefully and looking like a deer in headlights. It was an early morning but Iceland had been up for hours already after poorly slept night. He had checked on the Dane, even if feeling the heartbeat was the only thing he could do, and then he had returned on his tasks to somehow miraculously to find solutions for all his impossible problems and also survive the life he had been so cruelly thrown into.

“We already reached agreement on this”, another voice said, sounding like he had got enough for complains but was also trying his best to be patient.

“Of course, of course”, the first voice replied and the steps came closer. Now Iceland started to get worried and just as quiet as he could he slipped up from the chair and hid next to door so that he could see who was in the hall but they would not see him. It wasn’t normal that people came to Dane’s house and even more rare was that they came uninvited.

“I am simply reminding you that I do not enjoy coming this far away from the capital while my patients there need me and my skills”, the first man continued. Iceland saw three men making their way to upstairs. One was wearing normal, although expensive looking clothes, and carrying a large suitcase. Two others had uniforms that didn’t tell much to the Iceland beside of that they probably were important people. The one being annoyed was older, his hair having bit of gray, and two others were younger although Iceland couldn’t really estimate how much younger they were.

“And I assure you that this is worth of your time”, one of the uniform men said, “a service to the nation, doctor Felgaard.”

“Very well”, the doctor said. They were walking away from Iceland so the young nation could see better where they were going and what they were doing. It seemed like the uniform men had been in the mansion before at least once, because they didn’t stop to think were they were going. Of course Denmark had allowed, and even invited, humans to his house but still their home had always been for the nations the only place where they could be themselves so Iceland hadn’t got too used to see visitors. Iceland had heard his brother muttering sometimes how they all would be thrown into jail if people knew what they did at home, so that added a lot in Icelander’s opinion on people even if he didn’t really know why anybody would get that angry about what they did alone at home. Norway had never explained that more.

So it wasn’t hard for Iceland to decided that he would not show himself to those humans. No matter if he needed help, he would not go to ask it for humans. Norway had always told him to be wary of people, to hide or pretend he was something else, and Iceland had listened his brother carefully. Humans were not his friends, but a possible threat.

But he was curious too, and he knew somebody called doctor had something to do with sick people. So he quietly slipped out the room and like a shadow he followed the men, skillfully avoiding to be seen or heard. Usually Norway told him to hide when they had some of the rare visitors so Iceland didn’t have no problems at all.

“Where all the servants are?” the doctor asked with a small sneer and gave a look around to let others know that the dust and dirt wasn’t something he liked. Iceland too agreed that the house wasn’t looking very good, but there wasn’t much he could do for that. Iceland did remember times they had had servants keeping up the manor, but he had always avoided them and they were only working in the kitchen and stables anyway, not ever spending a night at the manor. Norway’s friends also helped, but they were all gone now. Iceland wasn’t sure if it was because Norway was gone too or just because he had failed to provide them porridge and bread as Norway had dutifully done everyday. Iceland wondered if they would come back.

“That is not your concern”, one of the men replied and guided the doctor to Denmark’s room, “the patient is here.”

“Very well”, the doctor said, sounding pissed off but deciding to not act for his feelings, “let’s see then.” Iceland sneaked closer until he was at the door. There he could stay hidden, but still see the men and hear what they were saying. He wasn’t close enough to see exactly all, but it didn’t take much for him to realize that the doctor had been brought in to treat Denmark. His curiosity and worry mixed up and he wasn’t sure if he should be happy that the strange annoyed man was poking the Danish nation with weird metal sticks and doing weird things that got no reaction at all out of the man laying on the bed, or should he fear.

“Is he still alive?” one of the uniform men grunted after a while.

“He certainly is”, the doctor said, pinching Denmark’s cheek for some reason, “I don’t recall seeing this man before.”

“How that matters?” he got as a reply, “you are paid for using your medical skills on him and paid very well even. Who he is doesn’t matter.”

“Of course”, the doctor muttered, but still sounded annoyed and maybe just a little curious, “well, he is alive. Definitely.”

“So what is wrong then?”

“I assume your gentlemen know how delicate the field of medicine is. Questions as ‘what is wrong’ are completely…”

“Have we mentioned that our patience is running thin”, one of the officers cut the doctor off, “and the field of military is not delicate at all.” The doctor sneered when he heard that, but didn’t seem to be more than offended about the threat. He started to pack his bag, working slowly like he was making a point and still observing the man in the bed.

“To answer for your question”, he finally said, “this is the clearest case of deep sleep I have ever seen. He is alive if we look at the bodily functions. He breaths, his heart beats and everything is functioning just as it should. The problem is his mind. He can not wake up.”

“How it can be cured?”

“It can not”, the doctor said, “this kind of illness leads to death almost certainly. It is only question of time when that comes, although I have to say this man seems to be otherwise in rather good condition and I can’t see any clear signs of traumas or accidents causing his current state. How long has he been sick and what happened to him to cause this?” The officers shared a quick look, clearly coming to same decision.

“That is not your business”, they said, “can you cure him or not?”

“Nobody can”, the doctor said, “my condolences to his family, but this man will be dead in weeks, if not less.” The officers’ expressions didn’t change even a bit, but the Icelander behind the door frowned and only the fact that he trusted his brother’s word more than any human made him stay calm.

“Can you at least make something to help him.”

“Excuse me, helping a patient to die is…” the doctor started angrily but was cut off quickly again.

“To make him more comfortable”, the officer grunted and the doctor calmed down with annoyed look.

“It is assumed that patients with deep sleep are still somewhat able to notice things happening around them”, he said, “often the family and close friends are advised to stay near by and talk with the patient. Forced feeding has been also noted to help to keep the patient living longer, although it is questioned if such thing is necessary when the death is certain to come and furthering the pain would be only cruel.” The officer took the words with unimpressed expressions and showed no worry. Iceland however had gave the doctor his full attention when possible help was mentioned and he focused on thinking that so much he almost forgot to move away from the door when men turned to leave the room. Quickly he rushed to hide behind the heavy curtains just before the doctor marched out of the room. He seemed to have got enough about the mysterious patient because he didn’t bother asking anything more. He only gave judging glanced around to show that the old and worn out mansion was not something for his status.

Iceland followed them to make sure that they were really going to leave and he would be able to freely roam his home again. When they arrived to the entrance hall he realized that there were even more officers than the two following the doctor, but they had only stayed outside with the horse carriages. He saw some of them when the doctor marched out, clearly more than eager to return his home.

“What you think?” one of the officers asked another and they lingered behind, staying inside where they thought nobody was hearing them.

“There isn’t much to think about”, the other replied and worry showed on his face when he let his stern expression to go away, “that damn doctor. All his bragging, but no help at all. It even costed damn lot to get him here.”

“He isn’t going to die, right?”

“No, I don’t think so”, one said with a deep sigh, “so far that we know and understand, his kind doesn’t die. He has been around since the beginning of time after all.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We do the only thing we can”, the reply was said in serious tone, “we wait. You remember the lore of Holger Danske?”

“Of course! Truly no Dane wouldn’t know it.”

“Well, what I think”, his voice turned lower and deeper, like he was really wondering his words, “maybe this time is like Holger Danske. He has gone to rest, so it is our duty to take care the nation will reach the new glory and have all the Denmark recovered from the war. And once, when we need him again at our darkest moment, he will wake up and be proud of us. That we did not give up.” At that moment Iceland knew for sure that these men knew who Denmark was and were not unfamiliar with the personifications. That didn’t make him trust them at all and he merely wondered why the Dane had told them. Norway had often called Denmark an idiot, so it probably had something to do with that. Denmark was simply so stupid he told his secrets to humans.

“Such a hopeful though”, the other officer said, “I rather like that. Better than to think that this means something is still very wrong with our land.”

“Positivism has always been my better side.”

“I hope you count prediction also as one.”

“Who knows”, the officer laughed dryly, “do you also feel like somebody is watching us when we are in here?”

“Now that you mention it”, the other said and looked around, but missed the hiding Icelander, “I do feel strange in here. Do you think somebody else is in here too?”

“Shouldn’t be, at least”, he said, “but it is old, abandoned looking mansion and we are living hard times. Maybe some poor soul is looking for shelter here. I did see some sign of living here.”

“What should we do about that?”

“Probably nothing right now”, the officer said and they started to walk to the front door, “we will mention it to higher-ups, but I do not think this as a problem for now. Whoever it is, they probably have been already scared off by our sleeping man and the troops guarding the area.”

“I think you might be right.” They continued their conversation when walking out, but Iceland wasn’t too interested hearing more and didn’t bother to follow them out. He was just happy that the humans were leaving again and he had got all the information he could need. It worried him somewhat that the officer had mentioned troops guarding the area, but because he hadn’t seen any other person inside he assumed they were not too near to the house. He still reminded himself to not spend time front of windows and to be careful with candles so possible humans nearby would not be alerted of his presence.

“What would my brother do…”, Iceland muttered to himself when he made his way back to the study room to think about what he had heard. Of course he knew what he brother would do, Norway had always been the one that knew what to do and he would have just walked up to the Dane and told him to get up. Nobody dared to refuse Norway when he used the commanding tone, and Iceland knew well that even the stubborn Dane would listen to it. But once again, Norway wasn’t there. Only Iceland was there.

“If he can still hear maybe I could just ask”, Iceland muttered and dig up the note paper he had left under few books. He frowned when he looked at it, and went to fetch ink and pen again. Few more stains were added on the paper before he managed to write “talk” under Denmark’s name and then draw short line to connect it to his own name. That already looked like a much better plan, although Iceland had no idea what he should be talking about. He had never been good with words and he didn’t even remember ever talking with the Dane more than what was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t very much.

“Okay”, he nodded and sighed quietly, once again leaving his short plan on the board when he made his way up to Denmark’s room. A hunger made itself known with loud growl in Iceland’s belly, but Iceland had already ate all he could from the kitchen. He assumed there would be more food in cellar but he hadn’t yet dared to wander down there.

When Iceland stood next to the sleeping Dane, he found himself still quiet and clueless. Denmark’s chest was rising slightly, his skin still pale and sickly looking, and eyes closed. Anybody would have assumed the man was dead or very close to the dead, but Iceland still trusted his brother. Their kind wasn’t so easy to die. So he slowly, almost hesitating and feeling strange, placed his hand over Dane’s. The skin was so cold Iceland didn’t really feel he was touching any living thing, but the touch also made him confused. Why hadn’t he run? He didn’t even know the Danish man. Not for real, at all. He was just somebody who had always been somewhere there in background, doing things and taking Norway’s attention. For sure there were no reasons for Iceland to stay.

But that he was doing. He was staying.

“Hey, Danmörk”, he said quietly, his voice showing his hesitation and unsureness, “it is me, Ísland… I assume you remember me. I just wanted to say… I need your to wake up. Noregur said you need to show me things and it is important so… If you could get up now and do that so I can be independent. Danmörk? Please?” Iceland waited for a while, impatiently seeking for some sign of the man waking up. None came, not even when he called the man’s name again.

“Of course nothing can be just easy”, Iceland finally muttered, sat down on the chair nearby, and settled to once again think about his problems while watching the Dane. He felt so very alone right then and he wondered if he could ever get used for that hurting feeling.


	5. Once out the dream

“...And they have opened the parks again in Copenhagen”, Iceland read out loud from the newspaper, “but somebody… Uh, I don’t really understand what this means but they did something others didn’t like, I guess.” The sunlight warmed his arm although otherwise the room was quite cold and he needed a blanket around himself. Denmark hadn’t woke up yet, but Iceland didn’t know what more he could do than follow the strange doctor’s advice and wait. So he had quite soon established new routines for himself.

First after waking up he went to Denmark’s room to check how the man was doing. He would wish good morning, never heard one wish back, and tell the Dane he was going to be back soon. Then he would make his way to the kitchen where he had collected everything edible he had found in the house. The cellar was been emptier than he had hoped and lot of food had been spoiled, but he had enough that he thought he could survive few months if he just ate little. So far he hadn’t been too bothered about the hunger and managed to keep himself from eating too much.

He always enjoyed his breakfast in the study room where he would try to figure out his plan at the same time. So far it hadn’t got much more, and the paper was more full ink stains than actual letters. After breakfast he would go back upstairs and sat down next to Dane’s bed to read something. Usually he picked up the newspaper and read that, if one had been delivered, or he just selected one book randomly.

He would read slowly for few hours, mostly just keeping on the text but occasionally adding his own comments. For the few first times he had been too nervous to really say anything and he had felt stupid to read out loud like that, but after days passed he had got used for it and rarely even thought about anymore. He just read.

The reading session would be ended everyday around noon when the officers came in to see Denmark and to feed him. Iceland was very careful to not be too near around that time and to not leave any traces of himself. So far the humans seemed to not have realized he was there, but they weren’t really looking around either. It wasn’t always the same humans, but they all seemed to take their task seriously and disliked to spend too much time in the mansion so they always went straight to Denmark’s room, did what they needed, and then leaved just as quickly they had came in. That really helped Iceland to avoid them, and otherwise he never saw humans around.

When humans were gone, Iceland would enjoy a lunch and wander around the mansion to pass some time and try to find anything that could help him. Denmark’s house was a real treasure chest and, although Iceland had lived there for centuries, he had never been one to wander too much. In fact, he had always spent most of his time in few specific places, always following his brother and keeping himself hidden, and so he was surprised by all the things he found now that he went around to look for those. The gifts from long gone ladies and lords, memories well preserved, treasures found and taken. Iceland could have easily spent months just being amazed of it all, but sadly no treasure was going to help him. The only comfort he got was the brief feeling of not being completely alone when he stumbled upon portraits of Norway, Denmark and to other nation that had briefly lived with them long time ago, but Iceland couldn’t even recall their names anymore. He had spent good few hours in that room and returned often just to sit down and think.

One day he made his way to furthest part of the mansion. That part had been closed off already for a while and Iceland didn’t even remember when he had been there last time, if ever. He didn’t really expected to find anything special, but he had already checked everywhere else and there wasn’t much more for him to do so he wandered on, not noticing the faded footprints on the thick layer of dust. The windows had been barred long time ago so a candle was the only light source Iceland had. He hold it up, moving along the wall to see if there was anything in the rooms anyway. Mostly they were all empty and abandoned.

Iceland had went through almost the whole area when he heard a faint scratching from his left side. When he moved the candle, the scratching turned into small paws running and the shadows briefly showed rodents hiding quickly behind the wall panels and heavy curtains.

“Rats”, Iceland muttered and grimaced. Now he knew who had ate up and spoiled some of the food. He heard more scratching behind him and turned to look. The sudden and quick movement tipped the candle and made hot wax spill on Iceland’s hand. The pain wasn’t much, but combined with the darkness, rats and everything that happened during the past few months, it was enough to make the young nation scream for horror and drop the candle. The only light he had died off, leaving him in complete darkness with rats that suddenly were much scarier. The young Icelander took few steps back, stumbling on his own legs and trying to take balance from the wall. He felt silky cloth under his hand and heard faint ripping sound, but at that point he was so scared that he only thought about running and that he did. He ran so fast he could, barely avoiding the walls and corners, until he was back to more familiar parts of the house. There he finally stopped to take a breath and saw the piece of cloth he had accidentally ripped off and took with him. Hid hand had been so tightly clutching on it that he didn’t even realize the had never let go. Now he frowned when he looked at the brightly yellow cloth with a small bit of red on upper corner. The cloth felt like the same material they used for flags and it was definitely high quality, although very old, so it had to have been important at least once and for somebody. Still, Iceland couldn’t really recall seeing the colours before and he was not going back to check exactly what he had ripped apart. After brief wondering he decided to forget the whole thing and just pushed the ripped cloth into his pocket without second thought.

After he had done enough adventuring for the day, he would return to Dane’s room to keep him company for few hours before sleeping and also to eat something for dinner. For the first days he had used that time just to read something again, but he soon started to get tired of reading. Almost everything readable in the house was in Danish and he hadn’t mastered the language enough to just read it without effort. He got quickly tired of even trying and started to simply tell Denmark all kind of random things that were coming up in his mind. Mostly it was about how he missed Norway, small reminders to Denmark that he was supposed to wake up and help the Icelander, and things he had noticed during the day. He often descriptive things he found, food he ate, the people that were in the house that day, and explained how he avoided them. He was rather proud of being so efficient with avoiding people and he really hoped that somebody would appreciate that skill, but sadly the Dane never gave him any comments. It didn’t bother him too much after while. He mostly just talked in sake of having some noise in the room and to have an illusion of not being alone.

After he got tired, he went to his own room to sleep. He took good care to lock the door and windows from inside in case somebody was brave enough to wander into the mansion to explore. For that same reason he also left some empty metal buckets around. He thought that possible intruders would stumble on them during night and wake him up. That he didn’t know what he would do if such thing happened, but he decided that he was going to think about that later.

So went his days. He did whatever he could but some things like getting food and starting fire in the fireplace he just couldn’t figure out. He knew some things he could get with money, but so far he hadn’t found any and he doubted giving the Dane’s treasures away was a good idea. Not that he would even be willing to interact with humans. It was sure the best to not meet any humans.

Denmark’s days were even simpler than the Icelander’s. All he did was to sleep deeply without any movements or signs of realizing what was going on around him. Even the humans’ tries to force feed him were not very effective and so far that Iceland knew the most of food ended up somewhere else than in the Dane. He thought the humans were just stupid.

The days went by and Iceland started to feel more and more exhausted after each. There wasn’t much food left, and he wondered if he should go out and see what he could gather although there wasn’t much in nature during winter and he feared humans. He was also getting bored as he had already explored most of the mansion and there wasn’t much more to do for a young nation that wanted to stay hidden. His exhaustion grew so he started to sleep more and his belly complained about the lack of the food almost all the day. At the end he started to even forget things and he could have been just staring at the pages instead of reading. He wanted so much just to have his brother back but there he was, all alone.

He started to become more careless after a while, partly because he was so tired and partly because he started to believe he was doing well enough to not care. There were few very close calls when he didn’t hide fast enough when the humans came and once he was even seen, but the man who saw him assumed he was just tired and shadows played on him. When he many years later thought about that time, he had to admit that it has been just a question of time when he was caught.

It happened one later winter day when snow had already started to melt and first brave plants to get green on them. After all that hiding and sneaky ways to survive, it was really stupid how he was discovered. That day he had slept long but because he didn’t know how to wind clocks, he had no idea what the time actually was. He thought it was way earlier than it really was and so he forgot to be careful. He didn’t even registered the steps coming closer and his dimmed mind was just focusing on getting food and following the familiar routines, so he didn’t realize anything before the men shouted.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” they sounded confused and just a bit angry, “who are you?” Iceland stopped and with horror realized that the men were looking straight at him and it was too late to hide. With panic he did the only thing he had always done when things went bad; he ran to seek help. Norway wasn’t there, but in bad situations Norway hadn’t been the only one to ran to. Denmark had always been there too. No matter that Iceland didn’t really know the Dane or had any connection to him, he had still been there all the time. He had also been the one Iceland ran to if he needed help and Norway wasn’t near. So he bolted, running as fast he could with shouting men after him. He went straight to Denmark’s room and pushed the door closed after him, hoping that the lock would held.

“Danmörk, please”, he said quickly and leaned over the Dane, “wake up now, please.” The panic made his words to blur together, but that didn’t matter much because Denmark wasn’t waking up and maybe even not hearing him. The men were shouting loudly behind the door and trying to open it. Iceland even heard more people coming and he was truly scared. He didn’t know what they were going to do, but it wasn’t going to be anything good. For the last chance, he hid under Denmark’s bed, somehow hoping that the humans were stupid enough to just give up when they didn’t see him.

His luck wasn’t on his side because once the humans managed to break the door down, they swarmed in and more shouting followed when they systematically went through the room to find the Icelander they thought was an intruder. Soon Iceland was harshly dragged out from under the bed and hold up by two men while third one stared at him like he had just been caught with a murder weapon in his hands.

“Who are you?” the man asked, “and what in hell you are doing here?” Iceland didn’t reply. He only shook his head. The man holding his left arm twisted it suddenly, causing a sharp pain that made the Icelander whimper. He tried his best to get in run again, but the men hold tightly.

“Start speaking”, they ordered him, “where you came from?” Iceland didn’t know what to answer and he didn’t want to answer, but every time he shook his head they gave him pain. He tried to say something at least to make them stop but the fear had took over him and he lost all his words. He wasn’t sure how long the interrogation was going on, but it didn’t stop until very familiar, but also weirdly strange sounding voice spoke up.

“Stop!” Denmark ordered, doing his best to sit up on the bed, “what are you doing? Release him right now!” Even when exhausted and just woke up from his months long slumber, he sounded furious and there was no doubt that he wouldn’t have attacked if he only had any power in his body for that. The men dropped Iceland, who quickly leaped to Denmark and climbed up the bed, hiding behind the Danish nation.

“Lord Danmark”, the third man said, “you have awaken.”

“Yes I have”, Denmark replied, sounding very pissed off, “and first thing I see is you assaulting my relative. Explain yourself?” Now the humans knew they had messed up badly so even with all their military training they started to back away from Denmark and look very uncomfortable.

“We thought he was a danger”, they said, which didn’t make Denmark any happier.

“Go”, he said after glaring at them for a while, “I will deal with you later.” They saluted quickly and left the room. It sounded like they were very close to running, and once they were gone Iceland let out all the breath he had been holding.

“Are you okay?” Denmark asked, laying back down and looking like he had the worst headache ever. His skin was still very pale and his hands were shaking, with even small movements exhausting him.

“Yes, I am okay.”

“Where is Norge?” Denmark asked, closing his eyes. Iceland had already got used to think that Norway wasn’t there anymore and that he had no idea when he would see his brother again or how he was doing, but when Denmark asked the tears came back like they had never dried at all.

“I… don’t know”, he muttered between sobs. He couldn’t see much through the tears but he heard Denmark sighing deeply.

“Oh”, he said sadly and quietly, “I forgot.”

“Please… don’t go back to sleep”, Iceland blurted out when he realized that the Dane was settling down again and held his eyes closed, “you are… supposed to… help me?” He didn’t really meant that as a question but for sure it sounded a lot like a question.

“I just need bit of rest”, Denmark said, “don’t worry. I will be up soon. I dreamed such a beautiful things...”

“Danmörk?” Iceland asked, but the Dane had already fell back to sleep. Iceland looked at him, the tears slowly stopping to fall, and after while he moved to sit on the chair nearby. He was too scared to leave the room and too scared to sleep when he knew the people could come and hurt him again. So he spent rest of the day and all the night sitting there, scared out of his mind and waiting for them to come while the earlier beating still hurt his body. Every single noise made him flinch and the darkness kept his imagination busy, but he didn’t even dare to fetch a candle to bring some light for him. He sat and waited all night alone. 


	6. Once we fight

“I did not joke when I said I will murder you”, Norway hissed, holding the knife on the Swede’s throat. Sweden looked down at it with very little interest.

“Where did you get a knife?” he asked, seemingly not worried at all about being threatened like that in his own room.

“You threw this at me when I was first pushed into this place”, the Norwegian replied, “a real Swedish hospitality.”

“Right”, Sweden muttered, “go on then.” He waited for a while, not doing anything to stop or encourage the Norwegian. It took few minutes but at the end Norway cursed and took the knife away.

“Useless.”

“I thought I was going to be murdered.”

“Murdering weaponless man is not honourable”, Norway said angrily and sat down on the bed, “and I am not wasting my chance to get into Valhalla by murdering somebody like you.”

“Pity”, Sweden said and stepped past the Norwegian to his work desk. He carried lot of letters and documents with him, but he didn’t seem to give much attention to most of them. Only few he took from the pile to work with and rest he dropped unceremoniously to the fire place. Norway stared at the man’s back, knowing that it irritated the Swede.

“Stop that”, Sweden indeed said after while without turning around.

“Stop what?”

“Staring at me.”

“I am not staring at you”, Norway replied, while staring at the Swede. Sweden muttered few angry words and Norway smiled when he saw that he was once again getting the man angry. Getting angry and fighting had soon become their most common way to pass time, and Norway simply loved how it made him forget where he was, why he was there, and what he had become. It cleared up his mind and the pain, both caused and received, filled him with joy.

“You are just as stubborn as your people”, Sweden commented and for Norway’s disappointment he sounded to be calming down.

“I am them”, the Norwegian replied and started to tear Sweden’s blanket with knife, “how so?”

“They sent letter again”, Sweden said, briefly touching one thick paper on the desk, “asking for independence and to have you back. Aren’t they ever going to give up and accept their fate?”

“Give it to me”, Norway ordered and jumped up from the bed.

“No”, Sweden said.

“Sverige, give me the damn letter.”

“No”, Sweden said again and ignored the Norwegian. Norway muttered few angry curses and went to fetch the letter himself, slamming the knife in to table with such force that it held up. Still Sweden didn’t flinch and seemed to not care at all that Norway had stabbed the table just next to his hand. Norway snorted and took the letter, quickly folding it open to see himself what his people were saying. Their words filled him with pride and joy, even if the letter hadn’t been addressed to him. They wanted what he wanted.

“You forgot your knife”, Sweden grunted and threw the said knife at the Norway’s direction without really checking where he was aiming, “and that is not your bed.” Norway caught the knife in air and promptly stabbed it into mattress he was sitting on.

“I know”, he said, “I don’t care. You can take the straw pile that was, oh, so generously offered to me, if you don’t like me sleeping in same bed.” Sweden replied with a short grunt and focused on this task that seemed to matter a lot for him. Norway didn’t pay much attention to the Swedish man right then.

They had fell in quite steady routines during the few months that had passed since the treaty. Norway wasn’t allowed to leave the room or have much rights overall, which about he daily nagged to the Swede. Sweden did whatever he wanted, so most of the time he wasn’t in the room. Norway liked to think it was because he was annoyed about his company. Being the Swede’s worst nightmare and making his life horrible sounded like a really good deal for Norway.

When ever Sweden was in the room they were either fighting, about to fight or knocked out after fighting. Sweden himself wasn’t that interested to start, but Norway didn’t have much to do and provoking the Swede to the point he had to attack and then beating him up was all the fun he had. And fun it was. Norway knew exactly how to be annoying and he enjoyed every moment. It was a cruel entertainment to replace the life he had been taken away from and to let him forget for a while how much he missed Iceland and Denmark. He didn’t even know how they were doing, though he trusted the Dane to look after Iceland. He wasn’t allowed to even get news, and whatever Sweden knew he didn’t share it with Norway.

Sweden’s work didn’t interest the Norwegian much. Why would it? It wasn’t about him anyway and he was dead serious about getting his independence as soon as possible and then return to his home. He still noted that Sweden seemed to be really working only on one thing and doing it with such passion that there had to be personal reason for it. That didn’t stop Norway annoying the Swede anyway.

Their game lasted for months with all the physical, mental and verbal fights. It could have lasted for months to come, if Sweden wouldn’t have stepped into room one evening angry and miserable. Norway took one look at him, even stopping his task to murder Sweden’s pillow with a knife that had become his trusty tool, and frowned.

“Interesting”, he noted when the Swede stormed in, kicked the door closed and threw the closest thing at him against the wall, “have you found somebody else to fight with? You cheating also me now?”

“Shut up, whore”, Sweden grunted and Norway raised his brow.

“Ah, so we doing that today”, he muttered, “how many fucking times I have to tell you that I am not a whore?”

“Just shut up!” Sweden yelled and started to slam and kick things around him, cursing all the time. Even if their very first fight had been started by the Swede, all the following once had been provocated by Norway. So the Norwegian was quite surprised to see the Swedish man just fall back to madness like that. Also, he didn’t want to miss the fun like that, so he stabbed the knife into mattress that already had quite many holes, got up, and hit the Swede on face so hard he just could.

It turned out to be a good fight that left them both without any energy to continue and the familiar pain in their bodies after being one doing and receiving blows. Surprisingly neither of them ended up being knocked out. They had ran out of power before that happened. So they just laid on the floor, both feeling beaten up and sporting new bruises all over their bodies. For a while the only sound in the room was two men breathing heavily while all they could do was staring at the ceiling.

“So”, Norway said after while, “what the hell it was?”

“None of your business”, Sweden grunted back.

“Of course”, the Norwegian muttered, “fine, I will just go through your stuff when you sleep then.” He wasn’t joking about that. It was his only way to get at least some news so every night when the Swede had fell asleep, Norway went through all the papers, letters and documents he could just find in the room and without any shame read it all. Sweden probably knew, Norway didn’t bother to be sneaky about it, but either he didn’t care or he just never left anything too important laying around. It probably was both because Sweden didn’t seem to care about most of things, but still Norway hadn't figured out on what he was actually working.

“Fine”, Sweden said after a while, surprising the Norwegian who had got used to not get many answers from the Swede, “they made decision today.”

“About what?” Norway asked, suddenly paying much more attention when he realized this was his chance to get some real news from the outside world. Oh, how he had longed to hear at least something.

“About saving Finland”, Sweden said, sounding exhausted and miserable.

“Oh.”

“They said no”, the Swede continued and something in his voice told Norway that the man wasn’t really speaking to him, “they are not raising army again. Not even considering it. They said it is too big risk and we should be happy about having…”

“Compensation?” Norway asked and spit blood from his mouth, “me, you mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Poor you”, the Norwegian muttered, “getting your little wife exchanged to this.”

“You wouldn’t talk about him like that if you knew him”, Sweden muttered, the anger sounding again in his voice, but the body too tired to act for it.

“Maybe”, Norway replied, “I maybe shouldn’t. After all, it is not him I am angry with. It is you. He is just a victim like I am. A war price. Both of us. But talking about him angers you and that is enjoyable.” Sweden didn’t reply right away, but then he did, he sounded again just exhausted.

“You are cruel”, he said.

“Am I?” Norway asked sarcastically, “well, it was not me who decided I was going to be handed away after a war to make a deal between states, and it wasn’t me who decided I should be separated from my family, thrown into jail, have all rights taken away, and then seen as a lowest slave of them all. It was not my decision. Having my revenge on you is now all I got until I am free again.” Sweden seemed to have nothing to say for that, because all Norway got was a deep silence. After few minutes the Norwegian felt like he had gained some of his strength back so he carefully started to move and crawl to the bed. His nose started to bleed again and such a simply task as getting up seemed too much, but be managed somehow to make his way in to bed and felt bit better after having softer place to lay on.

“You are going to bleed overall”, Sweden commented from the floor.

“Not my problem”, Norway muttered, “it is your bed.” He settled down better, taking care that all the space was his so even if the Swede wanted, there wouldn’t be a chance for him to fit in to bed. It was actually a wonder he had never just kicked Norway out, but Norway assumed it was because they had, completely without discussion, started to take turns with sleeping because neither wanted to sleep in the same bed with other at the same time. The straw pile on the corner hadn’t been slept on even once.

Norway had almost fell asleep when he finally heard Sweden getting up from the floor. But instead of sitting down or demanding to have his bed back, he walked away. Norway heard him sighing and muttering few inaudible words to himself, and then the door was closed and locked from the outside. He didn’t know where the Swede was going, and he didn’t really even care.

*****

“Wake up”, a voice ordered and with great disagree the Norwegian opened his eyes and started at the Swede who dared to wake him up. He took the knife he had kept under the pillow and pointed it at the man.

“The hell you want?” he asked with bit groggy tone.

“You need to get up”, Sweden grunted, “they are coming to fix the room, change the bed sheet and serve breakfast soon. You need to look more like a prisoner. You get problems if you don’t.”

“Whatever”, Norway muttered angrily, but started to get up. He knew the Swede was right and no matter how much he enjoyed to fight Sweden, he didn’t really feel like he wanted to be beaten up right then. So he moved from the bed and went to sit on the straw pile, looking pissed off the entire time. It didn’t take long for the knock on the door to come and a small army of servants to pour in. They worked fast and efficiently, completely avoiding to look at Norway but also seemingly being wary of Sweden, which interested the Norwegian quite lot. It really looked like the Swedish personification was, at least to some point, feared by his own citizens. That really didn’t fit the man Norway knew, so he got curious.

Just in few minutes the servants were gone and the door closed after them. The two Scandinavians looked at each others, now sitting in the room that had received a quick cleaning up and looked much better. The side table was filled up with food suitable for a Sunday brunch, and they had even let a small bottle of wine for them.

“You should eat now”, Sweden said.

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do”, Norway muttered, but his biggest feeling right then was confusion. For months all he had got for food had been something he either stole from Sweden’s plate or Sweden left for him after he had eaten. Because sometimes Sweden had his meals elsewhere and seemed to easily forget he had a prisoner to take care of, Norway had got used to go hungry now and then. This was the first time Sweden told him to take food and offered the first pick for him. Naturally, Norway thought that was suspicious.

“Lot of fish”, he commented after observing the servings for a while.

“You like fish”, Sweden said, “you did before.”

“I still do”, Norway muttered back and clanged at the Swede who seemed to be busy with sewing something, “what are you doing?”

“Fixing clothes.”

“Don’t you have maids for that?” Norway asked, picking up one of the pastries to nibble, “or was that Finland’s job?” Sweden gave him a bad look for that comment, but seemed to have no will to continue it for full fight.

“You haven’t changed clothes since you came here”, he noted, “it has been months.” Norway nodded, knowing well that his once fine clothes were now ripped, stained with blood, sweat and everything, and horribly uncomfortable after being worn for so long.

“Well, it has been this or to go naked”, Norway said with small shrug.

“I am fixing clothes for you”, Sweden said, all the time continuing his sewing, “Finland is more slender than you, so I have to alter these little.”

“What?” Norway asked, almost dropping his breakfast, “you are sewing Finland’s clothes to give them to me?”

“Yeah”, Sweden grunted and nodded, “there isn’t any other ones available.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“They are going to bring up a bath soon”, Sweden said without commenting the question, “you haven’t had real one in months. You smell.” It was true. Norway had washed himself with only cold water for past few months and he was aware of the smell.

“Wait now”, he said angrily, “what are you trying? To bribe me to like you? To make me more like Finland?”

“No.”

“Did I finally hit you hard enough to cause a brain damage?” Norway asked, glaring at the Swede, “not that you have much brain to get damaged.”

“No, Norge”, Sweden said, “I am trying to be nice.”

“So you hoping for some kind of Stockholm syndrome here?”

“No”, Sweden said and frowned, “what is Stockholm syndrome?”

“Damn if I know”, Norway replied with annoyed tone, “probably just prediction of future. It has to have something to do with you so it should be something very bad.”

“Okay”, Sweden said, “I just try to be nice. Nothing more behind this.” Norway glared at him and used a moment for trying to figure out what really was going on. They had had such a nice, aggressive relationship going on with the Swede mostly ignoring the Norwegian who tried his best to annoy the said Swede to the death. The sudden change over night couldn’t be just a coincidence.

“I am not Finland”, Norway finally said after while, “and I will never be. You can’t make me to be him or force any of you feelings on me. I am not him.”

“I know”, Sweden said.

“So you are not doing this all because I hit you too hard and you got disappointed because you learnt yesterday that you are not getting an army to bring Finland back to you?”

“No”, Sweden said, “I simply had realization last night.”

“Oh yeah, my fist”, Norway said, “that you had. Straight on your face.” Still, Sweden wasn’t getting angry.

“I know you are not Finland and I don’t want you like I want him”, the man said, “your heart is colder than ice. How can anybody love you?” They had shared many insults during the past few months, but that was the one that really hurt the Norwegian. He looked away and hoped he would be in other place with a man that had always told Norway he loved him.

“Can you go away”, he said, “I need to think.” Sweden nodded and made few more stitches before cutting the yarn and leaving the clothes on the bed.

“Try them on and tell me if you want something changed”, he said before leaving the room. Norway only nodded, his thoughts already far away from there. 


	7. Once with sadness

Iceland woke up early when the sun hasn’t raised yet. The whole night he had been uncomfortable, flinching for every sound and keeping guard from the chair he had pushed into farthest corner of the room. It was a wonder that he had slept at all, and he woke up with stiff muscles and headache. He glanced at the still sleeping Dane, noting that at least the man was moving in his sleep and looked bit more healthier, although he was till pale and looked sickly. It took few hours more before Denmark woke up, looking confused when he saw Iceland.

“Island?” he asked, “what are you doing here?”

“I…”

“Where is Norge?” Denmark asked, looking around with confused expression until it quickly changed into a sad one, “oh. Right. Of course.” Iceland swallowed the tears and got up to walk closer the Dane. All his bruises had healed over the night, but he didn’t feel too good. However, that wasn’t too important right then.

“Danmörk sir”, he said carefully, “I understood my people are now under your rule?” Denmark looked at him with a weird expression on his face, but then he nodded.

“I guess”, he muttered, “yeah, it has to be so.”

“And that…”

“What day is today?” Denmark cut him off.

“Sorry?” Iceland said with a confused tone.

“Which date it is?” Denmark asked again, “day, month, year?”

“I… I don’t know”, Iceland answered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The Dane sighed and muttered something that sounded like he was quite disappointed. Iceland felt bad.

“It might be…”

“I am hungry”, Denmark said quickly before Iceland finished his sentence, “could you get me something to eat and drink, Island?” Iceland blinked few times before he nodded.

“Yes, I can”, he said after thinking briefly if he could survive the way to the kitchen and back.

“Great. Thank you”, the Dane said and leaned back against the pillows, “and open the window. The air is heavy here.”

“As you wish”, Iceland muttered and did that before leaving the room. It took him longer to get to kitchen than it would normally have, because he kept listening and checking all the time that none of the humans were nearby, and he picked up a broom just in case. He wasn’t sure what he would have done with that broom if he met some wandering humans, but he assumed his instinct would kick in then.

Despite of his fear, he still made it back to Denmark with some water and last pieces of food he had. The Dane wasn’t impressed to see it.

“This is not even edible”, he said and observed the food, “the bread is moldy, this potato is all green and what is this white thing even…”

“Cheese.”

“Yeah it maybe was that once”, the Dane muttered, “is this really all there is?”

“Yes, sir”, Iceland said, “rats had eaten up lot.”

“Fine”, Denmark said, “go to ask for real food from the officers. I am sure they are camping nearby.” Now Iceland knew he was a nation under another’s rule, but even the thought of going out and look for those people terrified him. Not even for food would he do it, though his own belly was empty too and the hunger had already turned into pain. Denmark had given him an order, which he really didn’t want to follow but he wasn’t sure what the Dane was going to do for those who disobeyed him. He hadn’t sounded friendly toward the humans previous day, but while Iceland thought about it, his brother had been Denmark’s vassal too. Norway hadn’t always done like the Dane said, actually he had often done against what the Dane said. So could Iceland do so too?

“Island?” Denmark asked after a while because the Icelander was too busy with thinking to actually answer. That snapped Iceland out of his thoughts and he carefully looked at the Dane.

“I can not do that, sir” he said. Denmark frowned.

“Why? You just need to go and ask for food. It is not diff…”, he said and stopped then, “oh, right. You are afraid them. I guess that is fair.”

“Yes”, Iceland nodded.

“Well, then we just have to wait for them to come here”, Denmark said and sighed, “I can’t get up yet.” Iceland nodded and wiggled his hands awkwardly. Denmark started to nibble the bread, grimacing for the stale taste and trying to avoid the worst parts.

“Can I do something?” Iceland asked after while, “sir?”

“Uh”, Denmark said, “it is quite cold here. Maybe get a fire going.” Iceland glanced at the fireplace, his sworn enemy that he hadn’t learnt to master yet, and nodded slowly.

“I can try”, he said and started to work. He did everything carefully, paying lot of attention on selecting good logs and stacking them correctly. Then came the last part, the one he had so far failed every single time. He tried to do his best, but simply nothing happened no matter how he stared at the fireplace. He even tried to walk around and test different distances, but still nothing. The whole time the Dane followed him from the bed and looked utterly confused.

“What are you doing?” he finally asked.

“Starting the fire”, Iceland replied and stared.

“How?”

“Like Noregur does it”, Iceland said, thinking if the Dane was still too sick to remember simple things like that. Norway always started fires just like Iceland was trying to do.

“Uh, yeah”, Denmark muttered, “hey, Island, that is how Norge does it. We others has to use different ways.”

“What?” Iceland asked and at that moment Denmark realized that he was going to have to explain lot of things, some that he himself had no idea about, if he ever wished to make the Icelander understand why Norway was the only one who could start fires by only staring at the point he wanted set on fire. So he decided he wasn’t going to even try.

“Nothing”, he said, “the soldiers can do it for us. It is not too cold here.” Iceland nodded, disappointed that he had already failed with so many tasks and that there was clearly something he didn’t know. He had thought he knew already most of things and being showed that he did not actually know that much, made him upset. He wondered if he should ask the Dane, but just one glance at the tired looking nation made him feel like he shouldn’t ask anything. So he just sat down and quietly wondered what he should do now. He was feeling bit disappointed because he had thought Denmark would just fix everything right away, but now the Dane was awake and nothing happened.

It didn’t took a long for one officer to show up and he was clearly relieved when he found Denmark awake and not furiously angry with them. Iceland did what he thought was best and hid under the bed once he heard steps coming closer. Denmark had given him a weird look but had not commented anything or tried to make Iceland stop.

“Lord Danmark”, the officers said and saluted, “how are doing today.” He wasn’t any of the ones that had been in the room during previous day and he was wearing slightly fancier uniform.

“Well enough”, Denmark replied with his official tone that somewhat hid his exhaustion and weak state, “tell me, which day is today?”

“2nd of April, my lord”, the officer replied.

“Year?” Denmark asked, looking slightly worried.

“1814”

“Ah, so I have slept almost three months”, Denmark muttered and frowned, “I will need a complete update on the current situation.”

“The reports will be brought to you later today”, the officer promised.

“We will also need food. See that the kitchen and storage are filled.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“And I want somebody to come daily with news and to check if we need anything here”, Denmark continued, “somebody trustworthy.”

“That will be easy to arrange”, the officer promised, “but my lord, would it be the best if send servants here to take care of the house and you?” Iceland really hoped there wouldn’t be any humans in the mansion, but Denmark seemed to be thinking about the suggestion because he didn’t give his answer right away.

“No”, he finally said for Iceland’s relief, “I already have help and I prefer to have privacy during my recovery.”

“As you wish, my lord”, the officer said, “may I serve otherwise at this moment?”

“I would highly appreciate if you start the fire in fireplace.”

“Fire? Of course”, the officer said with slightly confused tone. Iceland let his curiosity to get best of him, and crawled partly out to see how exactly the task was done. He couldn’t see it clearly because the officer had his back turned to him, but at least he was able to realize that he should have used some kind of help for getting the fire started. When the officer turned back and the fire was going, Iceland had already retreated back under the bed where he felt safer.

“Anything else, my lord?” the officer asked, but Denmark shook his head, “may I ask… Your relative, how is he doing?”

“He is fine”, the Dane said with an anger sneaking into his voice, “I assume you will take care that the men involved in yesterday’s… incident are noted of their mistake.”

“Of course, my lord”, the officer said, “that is already taken care of.”

“Good”, Denmark said, “you are dismissed.”

“Have a nice day, my lord”, the officer saluted and left the room. Iceland waited few minutes before deciding it was save to show up again. Denmark was giving him curious look when he emerged from under the bed and shook dust off his hair.

“It shouldn’t take long for them to bring food”, the Dane said. Iceland nodded, feeling his hunger again now that he was getting calmer and feeling bit more comfortable.

“What should I do?” Iceland asked and hesitated briefly before adding, “my lord?” That was the title the officer had used and Denmark seemed to prefer it, so he figured he should use that one too when talking to the Dane. Just in case, because right then he felt like he wasn’t doing anything correctly.

“Wait for food?” Denmark replied and it sounded a lot like a question, “you don’t need to call me lord.” Iceland sighed. Of course he had got that wrong too.

“How I should call you then?” he asked and tilted his head, trying to think how his brother had called the Dane, “uh… sir? Love? Idiot?” he wasn’t sure about the last two, but those were the words his brother mostly used to refer to the Danish nation so maybe they had some kind of important meaning the Iceland hadn’t understood. He could easily believe that, there seemed to be awfully lot of things he hadn’t understood.

“Oh, yeah, um”, Denmark said, clearly confused and slightly shocked, “uh… Not those.”

“But Noregur…”

“Me and he have…”, the Dane started, but then suddenly looked miserable and corrected himself, “we had, at least, different kind of relationship.”

“Which kind of?” Iceland asked and frowned. Surely he had never heard about any special kind of relationships between his brother and the Dane, although he had been thinking there had to be a good reason for Norway to allow the Dane to live with them.

“It…”, Denmark tried hard to find right words and at the end decided it wasn’t his task to explain things, “it is not important.”

“But…”

“I already said it is not important”, Denmark said with bit sterner voice that ended with a cough fits. A perfect reminder that he was still sick. Iceland bit his lip and tried to think what he should do while Denmark sounded like he was choking. There was blood in his hand when the coughing finally ended, and the Dane leaned heavily against the pillows, his breath weak and skin covered with sweat..

“Are you okay?” Iceland asked, “sir?”

“What you think?” Denmark muttered sarcastically and sighed when he saw the Icelander frowning, “I will be, okay. Don’t worry. Just call me by my name.”

“Danmörk?” Iceland asked and Denmark sighed again.

“Yeah, that is good enough”, he said, “leave me now. I need to rest.” He was holding his hand over his eyes and gestured with other for Iceland to go away. Iceland hesitated.

“Shouldn’t I stay with you?” he asked and once again tried to think how his brother had done, “Noregur always stayed with you.” Iceland thought he had just mentioned a fact, because Norway indeed often stayed with the Dane. He missed his brother and there were important things to discuss and do so that they would get Norway back. How else they could plan that if they didn’t stay in the same room? The Dane however had completely different reaction than one Iceland had expected. He took a long breath, still holding his hand on his eyes, and shook his head.

“No”, he said with quiet and wavering voice, “go. I need to sleep.” Iceland frowned but nodded, because clearly that was an order that he should follow.

“Alright”, he said, “I will be back later, sir Danmörk.” Denmark didn’t reply for that and Iceland thought he had already fell asleep. But when he closed the door, he could hear a weird sound like somebody crying softly and calling Norway’s name with begging and miserable tone. Iceland stopped there, but soon assumed he had only heard wrong. Denmark was supposed to be strong and help him so the man shouldn’t be crying like that.

The next day didn’t make Iceland feel any better and he even thought few times if he should have ran after all. Denmark was supposed to help him, but all the man did was to be sick and tell Iceland to leave him alone. The Dane even made Iceland feel like he didn’t know anything and no matter how much he tried to do exactly like he knew his brother had done, Denmark always told him to not do that. Still he didn’t explain how Iceland should do so at the end the Icelander was very confused and feeling lost.

He didn’t need to read to Denmark anymore. The man was reading everything by himself now and had no time to explain the strange words to Iceland. He had asked first time he read news while the Dane was awake, but only reply he had got had been a small grunt and shrug when the Dane focused on something else. So Iceland had stopped asking and just read silently what he could. After all, Norway had always said it was important to stay updated on what happened in the world, and Iceland wanted to do his best so his brother would be proud.

They had got food. Iceland had been suspicious about it, but after he had spend long time inspecting the meal and noticed that Denmark seemed to not get any worse after eating, he dared to taste. It tasted like normal food, at least, and nicely filled his empty belly. He had hated to be hungry.

“Are you sure you don’t know how to cook?” Denmark asked again, giving the Icelander a weird look. The Dane still couldn’t leave the bed. He had tried, but his legs simply didn’t carry him and even such an easy thing as sitting tired him a lot. Iceland often saw him hiding his hands so nobody could see how much they shook, and there was always blood in tissue after he finished coughing fits. He also slept a lot, which made Iceland worry if the man could fall back into deep sleep.

“I can boil things”, Iceland said, “sir Danmörk.”

“You don’t need to say sir”, Denmark said, “so you can boil things, but you can’t make a fire?”

“I can lit candles”, Iceland said.

“But can you make fire in the fireplace in kitchen?”

“Not yet.”

“Aha”, Denmark muttered and slowly bit on the raw carrot that was part of the lunch, “good thing it is not that cold anymore.” Iceland looked down when he heard that, thinking he had once again disappointed the Dane. He wondered if he should mention that if the Dane just told him how to make a fire, he could do that. He could learn, but Denmark looked like he really didn’t bother, so Iceland didn’t say anything.

A week went by and then another, but nothing happened. Denmark stayed sick and weak, and Iceland started to get frustrated with not knowing anything. He usually sat in Denmark’s room during meals and evenings, but the Dane also sent him away all the time without explanation. There was no word about what he was going to do and no matter how hard Iceland tried, he couldn’t get answers or do anything right. One late evening he finally gathered enough courage to ask Denmark, what was going on.

“Sir Danmörk?” he asked and the Dane glanced up from his papers, not even bothering to correct anymore the way how Iceland addressed him.

“Yes?”

“When are you going to bring Noregur back?” Iceland asked bluntly. Such a simple question that he thought made sense, because what else could be the Dane’s purpose? Iceland wanted to have his brother back. He needed to have his brother back. Norway had said Denmark was going to help him, so it clearly meant that the Dane was supposed to bring Norway back to Iceland. For Iceland, that made perfect sense.

Denmark didn’t seem to think so. He looked like somebody had hit him with a sword straight to heart. He stared at Iceland, but not really looking at him. He was looking somewhere else, somewhere far away, and his expression was full of sorrow and something Iceland really couldn’t name.

“I can’t bring him back”, the Dane finally said quietly, pronouncing every word like it was his own death sentence he was reading out loud.

“But…”

“Leave me now”, Denmark ordered with quiet voice. He had covered his eyes again, as he often did just before telling Iceland to go, and his shoulders were shaking slightly.

“I will be back tomorrow, sir Danmörk”, Iceland replied and got up to leave. Clearly the Dane was still too weak and sick so they had to wait bit longer before he could go to bring Norway back, Iceland thought. It would be okay. It only meant there was more time for Iceland to figure out how to be independent nation so that his brother would be really proud of him. Although, Iceland hoped the Dane would get better soon. He really missed his brother.

Next morning Iceland dutifully returned to the Dane’s room with breakfast. Denmark was already awake, but his eyes were red and he looked even worse than before. They both stayed quiet during breakfast, the Dane not wanting to speak and the Icelander assuming that it was polite to not say anything. It wasn’t until they had finished eating that the Dane spoke up.

“I want you to stop speaking in Norwegian”, he said with weirdly uncaring but also sad tone. Iceland frowned and briefly wondered what language he should speak then. He had always been speaking Norwegian in that house.

“As you wish”, he still said because that was what people replied with when Denmark said something, “should I just be quiet?”

“You know Danish?” Denmark asked. Iceland nodded.

“I can’t read lot”, he said with clumsy Danish that wasn’t exactly correct but close enough to not be mistaken to other languages, “I speak.”

“Use that”, Denmark said and looked away. For some reason he looked guilty, but Iceland didn’t understand why the man would feel so.

“Can I do…”, Iceland said and thought about the right pronunciation for a moment, “something?”

“No, it is okay”, Denmark said quietly, “just leave me now. I need to rest.” Iceland nodded, collected the breakfast trays to take them back to kitchen, and left the room. When he closed the door, he heard something that sounded like a cry, but he assumed he had heard wrong.

So continued their life with Denmark being bedridden and Iceland struggling to do correct things. The more time passed, the more he thought he should have ran and the less hopeful he was because Denmark didn’t seem to get any better. They never spoke about bringing Norway back and if Iceland even mentioned his brother, Denmark sent him away. Iceland was clueless and worried, when he slowly realized that maybe the Dane wasn’t going to be help after all.

And then the letter came. 


	8. Once in truce

“Have I understood correctly?” Norway asked after Sweden returned and they had settled down at the table to drink wine, “you are trying to be nice?”

“Yes”, Sweden nodded. He had been away for few hours, which had given Norway enough time to calm down again and think what was going on. Unfortunately, he hadn’t got too far with that thinking.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked, glaring at the man sitting opposite him. Sweden looked like he wasn’t sure what kind of answer he should have given for that. Especially because so far Norway hadn’t accepted any of the answers he had given and that question kept coming up again and again. It didn’t help at all that during those few hours alone Norway hadn’t forgot Sweden’s comment about his cold heart and he wasn’t going to forgive it either.

“Nothing”, he muttered, already tired of repeating same questions again. Norway frowned.

“Nobody just change overnight like that”, he said, giving the Swede annoyed look. Norway had accepted the new clothes, bath and food, but that didn’t make him listen to the Swede’s excuses. He felt better with good food in his belly, clean and comfortable clothes on his now clean body, but inside he still had hatred and pain.

“I told you”, Sweden said, just a bit of restrained impatience in his voice, “I had a realization last night.”

“...of how to make me an obeying puppy nation?” Norway asked sarcastically, “it is not going to work.”

“No, not that.”

“How to make me trust you so you can abuse my nation?”

“No.”

“How to use me as an object to undesirably compensate to your loss of significant other”, Norway said, “and replace the earlier subject of your feelings as your mind can’t control the lack of constant companionship and adoring from another person, who you wish could be me instead.”

“What?”

“You are an idiot”, Norway muttered

“I am not looking to replace Finland”, Sweden grunted angrily after not getting further explanation from the Norwegian, “I am trying to be nice to you, because…” He didn’t finish the sentence, only glanced away and looked angry.

“...Because of Finland?”

“Yes”, Sweden said after brief silence, “but not like you think.”

“Oh, how I think?” Norway asked and smirked when he saw the Swede getting frustrated and angrier.

“Just shut up.”

“That sounds much more what I have got used for to hear here”, Norway noted, “very well, I accept your reasoning.”

“Finally”, Sweden grunted. It had taken all day.

“But I am not planning to change my behaviour”, Norway continued, “I hate you and I want to see you suffer. I don’t give a shit about your feelings and whatever pity comfort you are getting from ‘being nice’ to your war price.”

“I guess that is fair”, Sweden muttered. He was ready to give up the whole conversation with Norway. Not even the wine helped him, and he quietly hoped the bottle would have been much bigger.

“Are you still going to be nice”, Norway asked with a slightly bored tone, “or are we going to get back to beating up each other?” Sweden gave him a tired look.

“You get three meals per day, bath twice a week, and clean clothes once a week”, he said, “that is all I can arrange. You are still seen as a prisoner of war and that is something I can’t change..”

“What? No entertainment?”

“You are already stealing everything I own”, Sweden replied, “I believed that is enough entertainment for you.”

“Just for your information”, Norway said, “I liked you more when you were a real man and a viking. Not soft coward like you are now. Being nice to prisoner of war. Hell. You only won by luck and now you are crying after your pathetic love…”

“And I liked you more before the Dane turned you into his little puppet”, Sweden growled back, “they don’t call you Dane’s whore without reason, right? Got place in his bed and thought you are something now?” Norway slammed his cup on the table, spilling the wine and almost breaking the fragile glass.

“Don’t call me that”, he snarled.

“Isn’t that what you are? Before you were the one leading the fight and now you just follow him everywhere”, Sweden asked, “I just wonder why he would…” The man didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, because the Norwegian yelled and leaped over the table to attack him. It was shame to make his clean clothes bloody and ripped just hours after he had got them, but he didn’t really care.

*****

For the next few weeks Sweden tried to be nice. He absolutely tried so hard he could, but Norway made it quite difficult. The more the Swede showed kindness, the more the Norwegian started to push him until he got too angry to not fight, and lashed out. Basically their life continued just as it had been before, but now Norway got regular meals, didn’t smell as bad anymore, and had clean clothes. Sweden started to apologize after fights. Norway did not do so.

“What even could make you happy?” Sweden asked one evening after Norway had tactically annoyed him all the day. The spring had already arrived, making the Norwegian yearn to be out, smell fresh air, and feel alive again, but also giving him more energy to drive Sweden into madness.

“Open the door, give me my independence and let me go my merry way”, Norway replied.

“I can’t do that and you know it.”

“Well”, Norway shrugged, “then you may suffer while longer.” Sweden only sighed and returned to his work, ignoring the various objects the Norwegian was throwing at him. It was a wonder he even spent any time in his room anymore. It probably was because he had been ordered to be Norway’s guard so he had to stay at least most of the day in the same place with the man.

“What you are working with?” Norway suddenly asked, surprising the Swede who had already thought the Norwegian held not at all interest on his work. He didn’t know that Norway actually kept him on eye and had noticed that the Swede had once again started to give lot of attention for something but still ignored most of things. He thought it was strange, but there was only so much he could figure out by stealing documents and spying around.

“I…”, Sweden started but hesitated a moment, because he didn’t really want to talk about things he was doing. Not about all of them, at least, “I am working on the treaty with the Danes.”

“Why?” Norway frowned, “it has already been signed. Trust me, I noticed that. Somehow.”

“There are some smaller issues and details that still need attention”, Sweden said, “it is taking time. Something is going on there, so all the paperwork we get is strangely lacking and messy. It is like they don’t care at all.”

“What you mean?” Norway said, suddenly sounding much more interested. Sweden didn’t miss that.

“Why would you care?” he asked and turned to look at the Norwegian who was sitting on the bed and looked focused and weirdly worried, “you care about Danmark?”

“Of course I fucking care about him”, Norway replied, “what? You thought the rumours were true?”

“I…”

“You are even more stupid than you look like”, the Norwegian said and snorted, “idiot.”

“But you were under his rule”, Sweden said, sounding completely confused.

“Yes. And so was Finland under your rule”, Norway noted, “did he hate you too? That would actually explain a lot about you and your ideas of being nice.” Sweden flinched and looked angry when he shook his head.

“He didn’t hate me”, the Swedish man said, “he was my… My friend.”

“Nothing more?”

“It is not your business.”

“So isn’t my and Danmark’s relationship yours, but still you seem to be rather eager to tell your opinions on it”, Norway said dryly and Sweden tactically looked away, “so tell me, what is going on with the Danes?”

“I am not allowed to tell you”, Sweden replied, “but…”

“Oh gods, coward.”

“Just listen to me”, Sweden grunted, “I will tell you what I know about Danmark, if you agree to make a truce with me.” Norway used a moment to think about that, because he rather enjoyed to make the Swede suffer, but he was also eager to hear at least something that mattered more than the fish import files Sweden have lying around the room.

“What are the details?” he asked and glared at the Swede, “what you want for information?”

“You stop annoying me when I work”, Sweden said, “don’t kick me when I try to sleep, don’t steal all my things, don’t throw food out of window before I have had chance to eat, and don’t break my things or try to stab me. How that sounds?”

“That is too much”, Norway said, “I can make a truce, but I want more.”

“What exactly?”

“All the information on Denmark, Island and my land now on”, Norway started and thought about the details for a moment, “I want to see all the documents about anything related to me, my land or my people, and I want to have access to outside world. At least one hour in the garden everyday.”

“I don’t think I can grant you all that.”

“Well, then prepare to be irritated for days to come”, Norway said and laid back on the bed to show how much he cared, “I don’t have anything to lose here.” Sweden muttered something that Norway didn’t exactly catch, but correctly guessed that it was cursing.

“Fine”, Sweden finally grunted, “I can give information now, but you will have to wait few days before I can sneak you out. You better not run away.”

“Oh, you gullible idiot”, Norway said and rolled his eyes, “I could have left this place months ago if it wasn’t my people’s life under threat here.”

“So why you haven’t left already?”

“Because I am not an idiot and I know my disappearance will lead to conflict”, the Norwegian said, “and it has been fun to torture you. So do we have a deal?”

“We have a deal”, Sweden said. The two Scandinavians shook hands for that, both looking stern and unhappy. Sweden went to fetch the documents Norway wanted to see, and for the rest of the day the Norwegian was fully focused on those. His expression got darker the more he read, and soon he was cursing under his breath while frantically going through the papers. Sweden, who had enjoyed the first hours of peace since Norway had been made to be his responsibility, frowned and glanced at the Norwegian.

“It is not that bad”, he commented, “just an economical crash.”

“Yes”, Norway hissed, “economical crash after war, losing over half of his realm and having personal union broken. It is wonder if he can even get out of bed after this all… And I left Island alone there.” The Norwegian’s voice turned sadder when he spoke and Sweden, who had already planned to give an unwanted comment, closed his mouth last minute and thought about the situation for a moment instead. He wasn’t an idiot, no matter how much Norway called him one, and no matter how well Norway hid is emotions Sweden had once been his sworn brother in battle. Centuries had passed since that, but something was still left.

“Norge?”

“What about you keep quiet?” Norway said angrily, going through the paper like he hoped for the information magically changing to better if he just kept reading again and again.

“I am sorry”, Sweden said and he was honest.

“I don’t need your pity”, Norway muttered back. Sweden nodded and didn’t say anything more. He looked at his own work, the one he hadn’t wanted to tell Norway about. His people had already declined the call for a war and didn’t want to seize Finland back, but Sweden hadn’t given up. He had plans. He had the freedom and power to make plans. Norway didn’t have that.

Sweden sighed and started to work again.

****

“Take care you don’t raise any suspicions”, Sweden nervously muttered when he few days later smuggled Norway out to the garden. The Norwegian rolled his eyes and didn’t share any of the Swede’s restless behaviour.

“This is not my first time sneaking out from house arrest to enjoy a moment of peace and fresh air in lovely garden”, he said and gave the Swede a disappointed look, “although, usually my company was significantly more delightful.”

“I thought we agreed that you are not to annoy me anymore?” Sweden sighed and quickly checked that nobody was outside the room before he gestured the Norwegian to step out for the first time in months.

“Yes, we did”, Norway said, “but making fun of you is part of my nature and you should know that.”

“I think I can recall”, Sweden muttered, indeed remembering suddenly all the countless times from their wild and younger days when Norway had been ruthless, both in battle and with his words. Back then they had been still brothers.

“Good”, Norway said, “lead the way then. I want to be out.” Sweden nodded and took the lead. He had planned their route carefully to avoid most of the people and decided a time when there wasn’t much traffic in the castle. With some luck they could be able to finish the mission without any incidents.

They had almost reached the side door leading into the biggest kitchen garden where the apple trees could block view of the too curious humans. Not many people stopped to spend time there because kitchen gardens were not fancy enough for nobles, and the servants were busy with their work. Just at the door Sweden failed to hear a servant approaching around the corner. They met suddenly and Sweden had no time to gesture Norway to hide before the servant spotted them.

“Lord Oxenstierna! My lady” the servant said with slightly shocked tone and hurried to bow before backing away to other side hallway. Sweden got worried for a moment because for sure the servant was going to run to the closest guard, but then the words hit him.

“My lady?” he asked and glanced at Norway. Only that he wasn’t looking at Norway, but at a young lady with a simple dress and just enough ornaments to make her look a lower class noble.

“What? the lady said in Norway’s voice, “sure you haven’t forgot about my special skills? It hasn’t been that many centuries since we sailed together last time.”

“Uh”, Sweden said, because he hadn’t forgot but he hadn’t either known that Norway was capable to use the said skills like that, “...why woman?” Norway raised her brow and took a step closer so he stood next to Sweden. He reached his arm which the Swede took and they continued their way as a gentleman leading a lady would.

“Simply because a young, unknown lower class noble woman seeking for a private moment with a higher ranked noble man never raises too much attention”, Norway explained, “such things seems to happen rather often.”

“I don’t really understand.”

“What you think a woman and man would do when they sneak out to quiet garden together while nobody else is there?” Norway asked and raised his brow again when Sweden just continued giving him confused look, “fine. Let’s say if you and Finland sneak out to quiet garden…”

“We never did”, Sweden hurried to say and now he had slight red on his cheeks. Norway smirked.

“Of course you did not”, he muttered and rolled his eyes. They arrived to the garden without more incidents and Norway settled down to sit under the trees while Sweden held guard. Norway had told him it wasn’t necessary, but the poor Swede seemed to be lost and didn’t know what else to do so Norway let him be. It was too amazing to finally enjoy fresh air to be wondering why Sweden was acting weirdly.

The hour was over too soon, but Norway had to agreed that longer time would be a risk. It was better to have one hour every day than to face a risk of getting caught and thrown into jail where he couldn’t be out at all. So he followed Sweden back to room and didn’t annoy the man. It was a good deal for both of them.

*****

“Damn it”, Sweden muttered to himself out loud and restrained himself from just kicking the table down. He took a long breath and reminded himself that he was doing all the work for Finland’s sake and that he was already so close to solutions. It was just all the small annoying things that kept messing up everything, and even the treaty with Danes was in chaos. Sweden wasn’t having good time, but he hadn’t have any good time since the war so it was nothing new. If only he hadn’t lost Finland, he thought and felt the pain in his heart, if only he hadn’t lost Finland everything would be better. He muttered few curses more and and let his hand to hit the table, tipping over the ink bottle that stained most of the papers on the desk. Not that those mattered. Very few things mattered to him right then.

“Well, somebody is in bad mood”, Norway commented when he stepped into room just when Sweden was sulking at the mess. For the first week Sweden had dutifully took the Norwegian to the garden and back every single day for one hour, but after that Norway had been allowed to do his daily outside time alone. He had proved that when he was alone the risk of getting caught was even less than when he was with Sweden. Sweden even knew there were no jail in the world that could hold Norway in so it didn’t really make sense to keep him on eye. Also, Sweden had lot of things to do and plan, and he could use an extra hour for that.

“Not your business”, Sweden muttered and heard the Norwegian snort.

“Fine”, Norway said, “the treaty with Danes again? You have been working with it a long time.” Now that Norway knew what was happening in the world, his worry had grown. Before he had been worried, but assumed that everything would be taken care and Denmark would be with Iceland. Now he knew that things were not that great and he spent every moment of day hoping that his brother was safe and well.

“Yes.”

“What a shame”, Norway smirked behind Sweden’s back, “if only you had somebody with wide knowledge on Danish politics and diplomacy right here, right now.” Sweden didn’t seem to take a bait first, but after while he turned around.

“Are you hinting something?” he asked.

“No”, Norway replied and rolled his eyes, because he couldn’t believe how horrible the Swede was noticing things. He waited to Sweden to take another step. It didn’t take long.

“Could you help with the treaty?” the man asked and sounded slightly confused like the whole idea was absurd even for him, but he asked anyway.

“Of course not. I am a victim of the said treaty”, Norway said and tapped the chair’s arm with his finger, “but I could maybe consider if the price is right.” Sweden frowned when he caught on what was going on, but he had to admit that he wasn’t getting far with the work alone and Norway could possibly make everything easier.

“What you want?” he asked.

“What you can offer?” Norway asked back, almost challenging. Their truce had held and there hadn’t been fights between them for weeks, if few verbal arguments were not counted. Sweden knew Norway, even if they were not exactly in friendly connection right then, so he knew there was something the Norwegian was aiming for.

“I can try to work on getting your independence back”, he offered, but Norway seemed to be not too excited about that.

“You aim high”, he noted and sighed, “but who you think you are? Me and Danmark worked centuries to get my status restored and here I still am, just an extra piece in the game.”

“You might be surprised”, Sweden said, “but in truth many in this land feels sympathy toward your people and believes it is not our right to rule over them. It will not be fast, but the wheels are already turning and with some push I could make them go faster.” Norway looked at him and somewhere behind his emotionless look there was hint of hope and longing.

“I need something more tangible”, he still said, “I don’t trust you. I will not give you my help if I don’t get your help first.”

“Sounds fair”, Sweden agreed and thought for a moment what else he could offer to the Norwegian, “how about… a letter?”

“That doesn’t really sound special.”

“Letter to Danmark”, Sweden said, “a direct contact to him.” Now Norway looked more interested and he gave all his attention to the Swede.

“Could you really arrange that?” he asked, sounding suspicious because he knew very well that all the ties between Sweden and Denmark had been cut and there were no way anybody could just casually send a letter from one to other. Still Sweden nodded and seemed to be sure about his words.

“There are few people that own me a favor”, he explained, “officially I can’t send letters to Danmark right now, but if I call the favors, I am sure one letter can be delivered. It will take long, but it is something.”

“Only one?” Norway asked, “no reply from them?”

“No, unless Danmark has his own ways”, Sweden said, “which he probably doesn’t as you haven’t yet received any letters.” Norway used a moment to ponder about the deal, but finally he nodded. Even one letter was enough for giving help to the Swede.

“Fine”, he said, “first letter, then I help you.”

“I accept”, Sweden said and turned his attention back to his work while Norway rummaged around the room to find ink, pen and paper, and then sat down to write.

Norway had so many things to say, but not many ideas of how to say all that. For a few long minutes he only stared at the paper, holding the ped ready and many emotions going into chaos inside him. Then he took a breath, pressed the pen down and started to write with characters he hadn’t used for many years.

_My love,_

_I haven’t heard many news, but the ones I have filled me with worry. Are you doing well? My heart wishes to be with you at this moment, but only my thoughts can. Sadly, that is not much._

_Danmark, I am sorry I did not tell you about what Sverige warned me about before the treaty meeting. It pained me to step in knowing that I wouldn’t step out again with you, but it pained even more to break your heart. I wish you can forgive me._

_What comes to me and Sverige, I believe you will be delighted to learn that our old “brother” has been not enjoying my company much. I will leave details until we meet again, as I am sure you will greatly enjoy hearing it all and it would take many pages more to fully deliver all that enjoyment for you. Now I want to give focus on other, more important things._

_I love you. I have always loved and I will love until the end of our time. I know you blame yourself, but it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t sign the treaty or wrote it. You didn’t decide on which side of war we stood and neither was it your will to go to war at all. You and I did all we could on the battlefield, meeting halls, and king’s council, but sometimes it is just not enough and we rarely enjoy the privilege of controlling our own fate. The only thing we are blamed is that we love each other, and therefore miss each other more._

_The second thing, maybe even greater than the first if you may, is that my little brother is now under your rule and care. I asked this already once and I believe you heard my words, but let me ask you for one time more; take care of Island. He is alone, I am afraid I have sheltered him too much to allow him really become what he really is supposed to be, and he is scared. He needs help and guidance more than ever and I can not be there… Danmark, if you have ever loved me as you told me you do, show all that love to Island and make him strong enough to become independent. Do not let him alone in these darker days! If you can grant me only one wish, that is the one I want. There are so many things I didn’t have time to explain and teach him, and so you have to continue where I left off. You might soon discover that he is indeed clever and stubborn child, but I have a feeling you will enjoy teaching him. After all, you are very child-like too, aren’t you, my love?_

_Danmark, my love, take care of the two of my most precious things I left to you; my brother and my heart._

_Until we meet again, be it i Copenhagen or on my free land,_   
_Norge_

“Are you done?” Sweden asked when he heard the Norwegian stopping writing. Norway glanced over the text, thinking that it expressed only so little of what he felt but there was no way for him to make it better.

“Almost”, he replied, “one more.”

“Fine.”

_Island,_

_I am sorry I had to leave you alone. Believe me when I say, it wasn’t my will and I miss you every moment._

_I have received worrying news and I can only hope you are well and healthy. Is Danmark taking good care of you? I know you are not too familiar with him, but you can trust him and he has promised for me to continue your teaching, so soon you will be ready to be independent nation. I don’t think it will take long anymore, I can already see the signs on you._

_I have to also ask a favor from you. It seems that these times have hit hard on Danmark and he might be weak right now. Don’t worry, he is stubborn and strong so he will get over it. He might still need lot of help and unfortunately I can not be there to tell him to rest and cease from tasking duties. So just as I asked Danmark to look after you, I am asking you to look after Danmark. I know you don’t understand why I even bother with him, and I have to admit I don’t always understand that either, but he is good company now and then and can teach you all I didn’t have time for. Remember, he have protected you before, too._

_Lastly, Island, whatever you do and decide I will support you but do not run off with that puffin of yours. He is not good influence for you! Stay with Denmark until you are ready or I have come back._

_I am so proud of you, my brother._

_We will see soon again,_   
_Noregur_

“Now I am done”, Norway said, feeling strangely satisfied and empty now that he had got some of his feelings down on the paper. Sweden nodded and gave him a thick envelope that was just big enough to fit both papers.

“You still use those runes?” he asked when he saw the one Norway had written to Denmark, “it was long time ago when we used them like that.”

“And I haven’t forgot”, Norway said, “it is rather useful. After all, only three persons in the world can read these, and out of those three I don’t care what you think.”

“I am not interested on your correspondence”, Sweden muttered. He took the envelope, sealed it with candle wax and put it into his jacket’s pocket, “I will send it tomorrow.”

“Good”, Norway said and sighed, “show me that work of yours then so I will see what I can do.”

******

“Norge!” Sweden somehow managed to yell and whisper at the same time, which annoyed the Norwegian a lot because he had been asleep and the Swede woke him up. It was even his turn to use the bed so he naturally gave Sweden a bad look and would have given more bad words too if the Swede hadn’t hurried to keep him quiet.

“Get up and follow me”, he said and Norway frowned.

“In middle of night?” he asked, “oh, are they finally going to murder me and say it was an accident? Too bad, I am not going to die.”

“No”, Sweden said and looked briefly confused, “just get up. I need to show you something.”

“Can’t it wait for morning?”

“I am going to take you out the castle”, Sweden said as the final straw to get the Norwegian up and going. It worked. Norway jumped up, not even questioning where exactly they were going, and his excitement was enough to break his usually calm expression. It was already late summer and even if he had his one daily hour outside, he hadn’t been really outside the castle since January. It was over half year ago.

“Fine”, Norway muttered and followed the Swede. He wasn’t fully sure if the whole idea was good, especially because Sweden refused to say anything about where they were going and why they were going there. Norway couldn’t recall noticing anything weird on the way how Sweden had acted during the past days, but he hadn’t paid much attention at the Swede at all so there could have had something he missed. Since he had promised to not annoy Sweden anymore and his own time in the garden, he had settled down to ignore the man instead. It had worked fine.

Sweden guided him out the castle and across the city without mentioning even once where they were going. Norway soon gave up asking and just followed the quiet man. It wasn’t the smartest thing he had done, but some part of him still trusted on the Swede after all. They had been brothers once.

“In here”, Sweden whispered and stopped by one door in small alley. Norway for sure hoped that they were expected, because the Swede didn’t even knocked the door before stepping in. Nobody was in the hall, but Sweden seemed to know where they should go because he walked into room on left side and gestured Norway to follow. He found himself in small meeting room, several people looking at him with mixed expressions of anxiety, excitement and hope.

“Lord Norge?” one of them asked and Norway nodded, wondering briefly how strange it felt to be called like that again, “oh, it really is you!” Now expressions changed into happy ones, and Norway looked around in the room. He recognized few persons who had worked with him when he still aimed to get his independence from Danish crown, but most of them were unfamiliar for him. He gave the Swede questioning look, when it became clear that the people were waiting for him to do something.

“I told you”, Sweden said, “many here wants you to be free. They asked me to bring you to them.”

“I see”, Norway said and stepped further into room. Sweden stayed at the door, letting Norway freely to discuss with the humans about whatever he wanted. He didn’t join the talk or disturbed Norway until hours had passed and the meeting was over. Then he simply nodded at the Norwegian and in total silence they started to make their way back to the castle. Norway was so deep in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice the early morning sun rising, quiet city slowly waking up and the Swede taking different route that didn’t really lead to the castle. He realized that only when Sweden stopped and gestured him to sit down near small boat shelter by the seashore. Norway hadn’t realized they had walked down to the water and he gave the Swede s questioning look.

“We have to wait for a while before we can sneak back in”, he said, “and I thought you would like to be out while longer.”

“Yes”, Norway said and sat down. The sea was calm that morning, and he took a moment to breath in the familiar smell of salt and water. The Baltic Sea wasn’t like the North sea that he favored, but it too brought him beloved memories and calmer mind.

“Was it good?” Sweden asked after a while, making rather awkward sounding try of small talk.

“Wonderful”, Norway replied and looked out to the sea, “they want peaceful separation. Few centuries ago I would have laughed at such idea, but now it feels real. It can happen.”

“Hopefully.”

“Yeah”, Norway muttered and spent a moment just to think before he continued, “hey, Sverige?”

“Hm?” Maybe it was the feeling of freedom and promises of the better future, but right there Norway felt calmer than ever. Not happy, because he was still not where he really wanted to be or belonged to and he worried for Iceland and Denmark, but his mind was calm.

“Why?” Norway asked and Sweden didn’t need to ask what he meant. The Swedish man looked at the sea too, but not the small waves like the Norwegian. He looked somewhere else over the water.

“Guilty”, Sweden said, “I feel guilty. I thought helping you would make me feel better because....” He stopped and tried to get words out of his month few times without any success.

“Because you can’t help Finland?” Norway asked and Sweden nodded.

“I am working on several things that should help him”, he said with sadness in his voice, “but it is not much. I can only hope. He didn’t want to leave the battle, but he was hurt and I ordered him to go to Sveaborg. I have never before given him orders but I thought I had to. He was angry when he left, but I thought he would be safe there. It was built to keep him safe. It became the last place to surrender.” Norway glanced at him, easily seeing the same pain in Sweden’s eyes that he also felt.

“Finland is strong”, he said, clumsily offering the only comfort he could, “he is going to be fine.”

“Of course”, Sweden said.

“So you are helping me because you can’t help Finland?” Norway said, “it sounds strange in one way, but I guess help is help.”

“I know”, Sweden grunted, “I do it for old time’s sake, too.”

“Hm”, Norway nodded slowly, “the old times. We were friends once.”

“More”, Sweden said, “we were brothers.”

“True”, Norway said with slow and calm tone, “so we were.”

“I don’t hate you”, Sweden said, “I never did. I am sorry about all this.”

“Aha.”

“I advised against of the treaty”, Sweden continued, “I told them to ask anything else than to have you forced to make union with me. I feel guilty for that too. I couldn’t do more.” Norway listened quietly. He had heard that before too, and he had been living long enough to know that their life wasn’t always in their control and that blaming Sweden was not fair. He had done that because he needed a target for his anger, but now the anger was dying off, leaving him with cold emptiness and nothing to fill up it.

“I want to hate you”, he told the Swede with complete honesty, “I really do. But I think I don’t. I have known you too long, you stupid Swede.”

“I thought it would take years more for you to get over it.”

“Don’t push your luck”, Norway said and gave the Swede a stern look, “I might admit that hating you wasn’t fair, but I am still willing to beat you up any day.”

“It is okay”, Sweden said with a nod, “helps me to focus.”

“Getting beaten up helps you to focus?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, no wonder you were so eager to get your ass handed to you back then”, Norway said, “I always thought you were just an idiot. Well, what can I say? If you ever feel lost I will be happy to help you with that.”

“Thank you”, Sweden said, “um. Sorry about calling you Dane’s whore.” Norway’s expression darkened for a moment, but he didn’t lash out that time.

“I have got used for that”, he muttered, “how you knew they call me that?”

“Finland told me”, Sweden said, “he likes to know what is happening around him and he is social, so he goes around and talks with people. Heard somebody using that term and said there were no mistakes with assuming it was you they spoke about.”

“Lovely. So my nicknames have gone wider than I thought”, Norway said dryly.

“Sorry.”

“If you don’t stop saying sorry for everything, I will help you focus here and now.” Sweden was smart enough to not reply with sorry when he heard that. He was quiet instead, clearly wondering how to say something but struggling to find the right way. Norway let him to figure it out himself. There wasn’t anything to hurry for right then and the water made such a calming tone.

“Is it true?” Sweden finally asked.

“What?”

“Dane’s whore?”

“I have been telling you months that I am not a whore, what the hell is wrong with you?” Norway said angrily, but Sweden hurried to explain himself before they really went into fight.

“I meant the ‘Dane’s’ part”, he said and Norway fell quiet.

“Yeah, that is true”, he nodded and sighed, “in one way. He is also mine, but you don’t hear anybody calling him Norwegian’s whore for some reason. Clearly people assumed he is the one of us they should be afraid of.”

“You two… share the bed?”

“Technically you and me also share a bed currently so I have no idea why you make that sound so suspicious and scary”, Norway said and raised his brow, “but I assume you meant that we are together in romantic way. Well, yes. I thought you knew that. You were there when we made the promise to each other.”

“It was so long time ago”, Sweden said, “I thought it wouldn’t hold.”

“Well it did”, Norway said, “and it still does. Over 500 years and I am still in love with that idiot.”

“He cried when they read the treaty”, Sweden said, “I have never seen him cry before.” Norway didn’t reply for that and for a moment they were quiet, listening the waves and watching the sun rising higher. It was still very early and the nature seemed to be only one making voice around them.

“You and Finland then?” Norway asked after while, turning the topic away from him and Denmark, because it pained him to talk about something he couldn’t have right then, “you said he is your friend. Nothing more than a friend?”

“If it was up to me”, Sweden said after a brief silence, “we would be more. But he sees me as a friend and companion. I prefer to have his friendship over scaring him away by my fool suggestions.”

“Did you ever asked him?” Norway asked and the silence from Swede was enough for answer, “of course. How long?”

“When he followed me after our union broke”, Sweden said, “since then.”

“Over three hundred years”, Norway muttered and sighed, “aren’t you just a fool? Well, Sverige, we were once brothers and we sailed together more times I care to count, not even mentioning that you are involved with the movement to get my independence back, so I guess I should help you.”

“You already promised to not annoy me”, Sweden said, “no offense, but what else can you do right now?”

“You might be surprised”, Norway said with a small smirk appearing on his lips, “first of all, I am smarter than you. Let me work with you on those plans about Finland and I will see what I can do. Secondly, you know Maria Fjodorovna?”

“Tsarina of Russia”, Sweden said, sounding slightly angrier when he said that.

“Yes. That she is”, Norway said, “but once she was known as princess Dagmar of…”

“Danmark”, Sweden said and looked up at the Norwegian, “you know her?”

“Of course I know her, she was my princess just as much she was Danmark’s”, Norway said, “and before I was handed over I even had quite… not maybe friendly, but polite and close at least, relationship with the royal family and I know some of them are rather positive about me. So yes, I know her and I might be able to get in contact with her.”

“She could help Finland”, Sweden said, suddenly looking more hopeful than he had looked for months.

“It is a small hope, but it is hope anyway. At moment like this we have to take what we can”, Norway nodded.

“But why would you help me?” Sweden asked, “you are a prisoner of war.” Norway looked at the sea and wondered the same question. After all, there was only one, very simple answer for it.

“Once we were brothers”, he said, “One day we might be that again.”


	9. Once in guilty and anger

It was a wonder that the woman in kitchen never happened to look up to the ceiling while she worked, but then again she was rather nervous and tried to work as fast as possible so she simply had no time to look up and realize that she was being watched. Iceland laid on one of the wide trunks that hold the building. There was just enough place between the stone ceiling and wood for him to crawl in.

The reason why the personification of Iceland was hiding up in the ceiling and spying the poor woman in such suspicious way, was that he tried to learn how to make a fire into fireplace. It had been his goal for months already and once Denmark had got tired of eating raw and cold food every day and hired this woman to come in once a day to prepare a meal, Iceland had took a chance to figure out how exactly the whole thing worked. Of course he wasn’t going to ask the woman. That was just an absurd idea and Iceland had sworn for himself to never again go near any human. Also, the woman seemed to be always be slightly nervous when she was working so Iceland assumed she wasn’t good human and was planning something. He had no idea that for the said human, working in alone in completely quiet and abandoned looking mansion where she never saw the person she made food that still clearly was eaten and there were occasionally small messages left for her about what she should prepare for the day, was simply terrifying. She was there only because the paid was extraordinary high for such a small job, she had been hired by a king himself and there was always a soldier positioned just outside the kitchen door when she worked, so basically it was safe and good work for her. She was only very scared and uncomfortable. She would have been even more if she knew about Iceland stalking her.

The fire had been on already while and the woman was finishing her cooking, but Iceland was still quietly and without movement laying in his hiding place. The problem with his ways to get knowledge was that in order to not be noticed he had to climb up before the woman arrived he could get down only after she had left. Otherwise he would be spotted for sure. He still didn’t have any working clocks in the house, so that day he had already been uncomfortably hiding for hours simply because he had no idea when the woman would arrive. The wood under his body and the stone scratching his back didn’t feel good and hours staying still and quiet made his whole body ache. He only did it all because he had stubbornly decided that he was going to learn to master the fireplace no matter what it took. The only thing he drew line to was to actually ask humans to show him.

The woman started to clean away the bowls and other utensils she had used, which was a sign that she was going to leave soon. Iceland sighed for relief, because he had already waited so long. the food in the pot smelled good, but he already knew he wasn’t going to eat it. He had so far eat nothing the woman did, because he didn’t trust the food being edible. Of course Denmark ate that food daily and wasn’t getting any worse, but Iceland wasn’t going to take risks. He trusted more on raw vegetables, dried meat and berries for meals.

Iceland waited for a while after the humans had left, making sure that they were really gone and would not show up again suddenly. When there were no signs of them after Iceland had slowly counted in 200, he dared to climb down. His whole body was aching after being forced into such uncomfortable place and position for so long, but he didn’t stop to think about that for too long. Instead he went to check what the woman had done, still feeling disappointed that his efforts hadn’t yet brought him any results and he hadn’t managed to see exactly what was the secret of fireplace. He had been sure that the view from above would help but it turned out to be difficult to see anything when there were smoke and the view was blocked by the ceiling elements. He had still got bit more info that he needed to think about and maybe test few things to see if he had guessed the trick right. Before he could do that however, he needed to take the lunch up to the Dane who still haven’t been able to get out the bed.

He collected the meal on the tray, carefully filling up a bowl with the hot soup the woman had made. Then he took the tray up the stairs, struggling bit with the weight because his arms were tired after all that spying he had done. He still managed to make it to Dane’s room without spilling or dropping anything.

“Hey, Danmörk sir?” he called from the door, pushing it open with his shoulder, “here is the lunch.”

“Great”, the Dane said and struggled bit to getting up to sit, “what is it?”

“Meat soup, sir”, Iceland said and placed the tray on the small table they had moved next to Danmark’s bed, “I think.”

“Good”, Denmark said and started to eat slowly, clearly annoyed of how much his hand shook and it took much longer than would be normal for him to eat. There were always spilled food on the Dane and his bed after meals, but he never asked more help so Iceland didn’t offer.

Iceland picked up the carrots and dry meat he had selected for his own lunch. Denmark had questioned his choice once after they had first got warm food made, but a shrug from Iceland had been good enough answer for him and he hadn’t asked again although he sometimes gave the Icelander a weird look when they ate. They didn’t talk during lunch and after it Denmark said he needed to rest so Iceland was left alone to clean up.

He had just got the tray back to kitchen, he only left everything for the woman to see next day, when his bird companion flew in through window. Just as always, the puffin had returned after winter and loudly declared his disappointment for the Dane being alive and awake. Because Iceland still refused to run, the bird had continued his normal life which meant that he was away a lot doing his own stuff and only showed up to check on the Icelander now and then.

“Hello”, he said and sat on the chair back, “you still okay here?”

“Yes”, Iceland said, “how are you?”

“Fine, fine”, the bird said, “did you figured out that fire thing yet?” Iceland sadly shook his head and sighed.

“No”, he said, “but I think I am pretty close already.”

“Huh, okay”, Puffin said, sounding like he wasn’t too interested, “why you even so eager about that stuff? Nobody needs fire when there are all the fish in the sea and good feathers and fat to keep you warm.”

“I don’t have feathers.”

“Grow some then”, Puffin said, “it is not that difficult.” Iceland was going to tell the bird that so far he hadn’t been able to grow any feathers and after all the centuries he was quite sure it wasn’t option for him, especially because Norway had never mentioned anything about growing feathers. He only stopped the explanation because he heard noise from the hall, and knew the courier had visited. Just like all the humans around, the courier too seemed to think that the mansion was cursed but because he was paid well and directly by the state, he agreed to open the door once a day and quickly drop the post on the side table. Iceland hadn’t been too wary about that man, or woman because he had never really seen who actually delivered the post, since they never stopped by for longer than what it took to almost throw the post in.

“It is the post”, Iceland said and went to the hall to see what they had got. He had got into habit to read the newspaper every day and it had become somewhat calming routine for him although the news rarely were good. Often the post also included different reports and documents for Denmark, but Iceland wasn’t allowed to look at those and the Dane never told him what it was about, so he really didn’t know what to think about that. Probably it wasn’t anything important anyway.

He took the newspaper from the pile, quickly looking through the main news before neatly folding the paper under his arm. Rest of the post he simply ignored because Denmark was sleeping and there wasn’t going to be anything for Iceland. He only got letters from his people, but those always came with Norway’s name, and now Norway wasn’t there so Iceland had no idea how he could keep contact with his people. He had been thinking about asking Denmark, but the Dane seemed to be always either sleeping or busy with something that he thought was more important.

Iceland made his way to the study room where he had started to spend all the time that he didn’t use to stalk poor kitchen woman, sleeping or sitting down with Denmark. He didn’t have too much to do, but at least in the study he could relax, read and write his plan. Not that there was much plan to do. So far the only update he had got was “awake” written under Denmark’s name and few question marks added around his own.

He sat down, briefly glancing at the puffin who had snatched bit of cheese and sat down at the table edge to nib it. Despite of the bird always glorifying the live at the sea and eating only fish, he still visited the food storage quite often.

“I heard the woman wondering why there is so much beak marks on the cheese”, Iceland mentioned.

“Maybe she should just take care of her own damn business”, Puffin replied and kept eating the cheese.

“It is technically… oh”, Iceland stopped and stared at the envelope that had been folded up in side the newspaper. That had never happened before so Iceland frowned and wondered why it had been tucked in there. It was like somebody had desperately hid the envelope so that it would be delivered, but why to not just give it to the courier then?

“What?”

“A letter”, Iceland said and pointed at the envelope. Unlike the most of the letters they got, this one had been folded few times, the lines clearly showing in the thick paper, and it had gone through a lot. Piece of one corner was missing, there was weird stains on it and the originally grey-ish colour had become darker and dirty. It was for sure a curious looking letter.

“Ah, so just throw it in the pile with others then”, the puffin said, already forgetting the whole thing. But Iceland didn’t take it into the pile, because when he picked up the envelope, he saw his brother’s handwriting.

“It is from Noregur!” he yelled and jumped up, the excitement and surprise making him happy, “it is from Noregur!”

“Oh, okay, what he is saying then?” Puffin asked, “never understood what is so great about letters but go crazy, I guess.”

“I shouldn’t open it”, Iceland said with slightly disappointment when he realized the letter was addressed to Denmark.

“Why the heck no?”

“It is not for me”, Island said and showed up the envelope, “see? It doesn’t have my name on.” The bird seemed to unimpressed about that.

“But it is in your hand right now”, he said, “and it is from your brother. He shouldn’t be around sending letters like that if he didn’t expect somebody to open it. It is not even locked. Just have some funny thing over it, see?” The bird flew closer, snatched the letter and with quick beak work ripped the seal open. Iceland gave him slightly horrified look.

“You broke it!”

“No, I opened it”, the bird said, “there is a difference. And now it is open so you can just read whatever your brother wants to say and get over it, okay?” Iceland still hesitated, but his curiosity was stronger and he had missed his brother so much. The only other alternative was to give the letter to Denmark and wait for him to tell what Norway had written, but the Dane was sleeping and he would be sleeping hours more. Iceland wanted to know right then.

“Okay”, he said and picked up the envelope so that two pieces of paper fell out. Despite of the letter being worn out and stained during the travel, the papers inside hadn’t taken any damage. He took the first paper, frowning when he saw it was written with runes. He could understand those, but something was very weird with the ones Norway had written. No matter how Iceland looked at it, the text seemed to make no sense at all. He wondered if it was some kind of secret language that Norway hadn’t taught him or if his poor brother had lost the ability to write. Both options sounded very bad for Iceland because he would have been sad about not knowing his brother’s secret language, but it was also sad if Norway couldn’t write anymore.

He took a look of the other paper and immediately felt better because not only it was written in language he could read, it was also addressed to him. He smiled when he read the short letter, only slightly disappointed that Norway didn’t say anything about coming back soon or even where he actually was, but it felt good to read his brother’s words.

“He says I will be soon ready to be independent”, Iceland told the puffin.

“So you going to run away with me then?”

“He also says I should not run away with you no matter what”, Iceland said, “sorry.”

“Way to disrespect me”, Puffin snorted, “fine then. If you are sure this is what you want.” The bird raised his wings to gesture around and Iceland shrugged.

“I have roof over me”, he said “and food.”

“The roof has holes in it”, Puffin said, “and your food sucks.”

“I have Danmörk”, Iceland said, “he can keep me safe.”

“He can’t even get up from the bed and sleeps most of the time”, Puffin noted, “seriously, do you have even a single reason to stay here?” Iceland hesitated, but nodded anyway.

“My brother said I should.”

“Maybe your brother was wrong then”, barely had the bird said that when Iceland already gasped and stared at him like he had said the most unexpected thing possible.

“My brother is never wrong!” he said with high enough tone for it to be almost yelling.

“Just think about it!” the bird replied just as loudly, “you keep talking about the Dane protecting and teaching you and showing stuff… Have he done any of that? No! He doesn’t even think about you most of the time.”

“He has been sick!”

“It has been over half year he woke up”, Puffin sighed, “how long it takes for you to get this?” Iceland didn’t reply. He only looked away and continued being angry about what the bird said. Nobody should be telling that kind of stuff about his brother. Puffin sat down for a moment more, but then just snorted and flew away. Iceland didn’t care about that.

That evening Denmark didn’t want to talk, which honestly was quite normal right then. Iceland sat on the chair while they quietly ate their dinner. The woman, whose name Iceland didn’t even know and Denmark never mentioned if he knew, only came by for lunch so the dinner and breakfast were always whatever Iceland could make. As he still hadn’t fully figured out the fire place, but he knew he was very close that, the meals he served were always bread, raw vegetables and dried meat or fish. Dutifully he tried few times per week if he could already get the fire going, but there still was something he was missing.

Iceland glanced at the Dane quietly struggling to eat with his hands shaking and being too weak to even hold the food. Take care of Denmark, Norway had asked him to do, but how he was supposed to take care of the Dane? Denmark was a powerful nation, at least in Iceland’s eyes, how could he take care of him? Weren’t all the independent nations supposed to take care of themselves alone?

“I need to sleep”, Denmark muttered once he had ate enough. Iceland nodded, collected the dishes and left. He really wondered what Norway had meant.

****

Next day Iceland knew what he was going to do.

He was going to ask Norway exactly what he meant with taking care of the Dane part. Also, Iceland thought he needed some more information on how exactly Norway thought Denmark was going to help him with the process to become independent nation. Even if he trusted in his brother, the puffin had made some good points and so Iceland felt like he should ask Norway to tell bit more. There probably was something important he was missing.

So Iceland decided not to stalk the poor kitchen woman that day, but went straight to study room instead. He managed to find a piece of paper that hadn’t been yet used for anything, and some ink that was still usable. He sat down, used a moment to think what he should ask and tell, and then he started to write. He did careful work and used the best handwriting just so Norway would see how well he could already do. The letter wasn’t too long, but when he looked at it he thought it was rather good letter and would deliver his thoughts just fine. After brief thinking he only added a question about if Norway knew more about fireplaces, because Denmark seemed to not know and it was quite difficult thing to figure out alone.

Then Iceland realized that sending a letter might not be as easy as he thought. He knew how the post arrived to them, and he had seen many times his brother sending post by giving it to the courier. That would mean that Iceland had to make a contact with at least one human in order to send his letter. He was even considering to do that because getting answers from his brother even won his fear toward humans, but the problem was he had no idea which human would be the right one and there were lot of humans. He didn’t want to go around to figure that out.

“Puffin!” he said out loud and smiled when he realized what was the simple solution for the whole problem. He knew people sometimes used birds to deliver messages, and for sure Puffin could do that better than any pigeon. He only needed to find the puffin but he was pretty sure the bird was somewhere close by. Despite of his rude style, he never left for too long without saying goodbye.

So Iceland went to get his shoes and carefully sneaked out without anybody noticing him. He didn’t bother with telling Denmark where he was going, because the Dane was sleeping and wouldn’t care at all. That added some thrill, because Norway had always been careful about knowing Iceland’s exact whereabouts at any time of day, and now Iceland was going completely by his own. It was rather exciting. Scary too, because he had to avoid humans.

It didn’t take him long to get to the shore and he smiled when he spotted few puffins sitting on the rocks. His puffin wasn’t there, but Iceland figured that other puffins might know where he was and help him to find the bird. So he sneaked closer, holding up piece of cheese to show that he came in peace. The puffins were wary of him, but they had also seen the young nation before and the cheese interested them, so they didn’t fly off.

“Hey, good morning”, Iceland said politely and offered the cheese for the birds that gathered closer to curiously observe him, “it is nice day, right? Um, I was wondering if you could help me a little? I am looking for this one specific puffin. He looks a lot like you, he is very rude most of the time and his name is Puffin. Mister Puffin. I am sure you have heard of him?” The puffins didn’t answer, but the cheese was accepted so Iceland waited a moment. For his experience, puffins were quite self-centered and bad mouthed, so he knew he needed patience. It was weird thought that none of them were replying.

“What the hell you doing here?” a loud voice asked behind the nation and Iceland smiled when he turned around. The puffins had helped him after all.

“Puffin!” he said, “hey, I need your help.”

“Of course you need my help”, Puffin said, “but why you talk to them like an idiot?”

“I thought they could help me to find you”, Iceland explained.

“Sweet child, I am the only puffin that understand human language. These guys are just using you for treats”, Puffin said and Iceland briefly wondered how it was rude for other puffins to use him for treats when it was exactly what Puffin did too, “well, shoot away, what you want? Finally running?”

“Not yet”, Iceland said with head shake, “I want to send a letter to Noregur, can you take it?” Puffin didn’t reply right away, but Iceland kept looking at him so finally the bird sighed and nodded.

“I guess I can”, he said, “but we gotta do that fast. It is already autumn and I can feel the cold in my feathers.”

“Thank you, Puffin!” Iceland smiled, “I already wrote it so you can leave right away.”

“Fine, okay”, the bird said, “and where the hell I am taking this letter to?” Iceland had already got up to run back so he could get the letter sent, but now he stopped and frowned.

“To Noregur?” he said. It sounded a lot like a question.

“Kid”, Puffin sighed, “I need to know where he is. The world is really big, you know, I can’t just fly around and hope I accidentally poop on while I am on it him or something.”

“Uh”, Iceland tried to think fast, “I… I will have to ask Danmörk. He should know.”

“Fine”, Puffin said and followed after the young nation who hurried to home. Iceland was so excited about sending his letter to Norway that he ran all the way and didn’t even stop to see if the humans had already left before he went to Denmark’s room. The Dane was sleeping, but woke up when Iceland barged into the room. He looked confused about such a sudden entrance.

“What is it?” he asked and carefully got up to sit, “is lunch done?”

“No, or I don’t know”, Iceland said quickly, “Danmörk, sir, can you tell me where my brother is?” Denmark’s expression changed immediately into colder one.

“No”, he said.

“But I need to know, it is important”, Iceland said, “sir Danmörk. You know where he is?”

“Yes, I know where he is”, Denmark said, sounding irritated that the icelander just didn’t drop the topic like he usually did once he got negative answer.

“I need to know!”

“Island”, Denmark said sternly, almost sounding angry, “I told you. I can not bring your brother back and he can not come back! We can do nothing!”

“But…”

“Stop it, Island!” the Dane yelled, “it is over! It is all over!” He leaned forward like he wanted to touch Iceland, and his voice broke down at the last words. Iceland took few steps back and held his arms around himself. He could feel his heart beating faster for a while, preparing him to run if the situation turned into danger. Denmark stopped when he saw that. His breathing was coming out bit heavier and face turning red for the anger, but then he saw the brief look of fear in Icelander’s eyes. He fell back into bed, looking away.

“Stockholm”, he said quietly, “he is in Stockholm. Is that all you need to know?”

“Yes, sir Danmörk”, Iceland said quickly and almost jumped out. The door went close after him and he didn’t return back to the Dane that day. Once he had showed Puffin from the map where Stockholm was and the bird flew off, he quietly wandered into his brother’s room. There he climbed up on the bed, hugged the pillow tightly and thought how his brother had never yelled at him like that.

*******

“I am not sure how you even think that would help”, Norway said and frowned at the plan Sweden had wrote up, “technically, it sounds like a very bad idea.” Sweden stared at the plan too, only slightly nodding.

“But if it stays as secret…” he offered, but Norway shook his head.

“Too risky”, he said, “you don’t want to throw Finland straight into conflict only because your plan backfired. So far that we know, he might not even need our help.”

“Tsarina hasn’t replied yet”, Sweden muttered.

“She is tsarina”, Norway said, “which means she is rather busy. And it wasn’t that many weeks ago we sent our letter. It could take months for one to be delivered.” The previous months had changed a lot, mostly because they had agreed to work with each other instead of wasting energy for being angry. Norway was still officially a prisoner but at least his jail guard wasn’t seeing him as such.

“I guess you are right”, Sweden agreed after brief thinking.

“Of course. I am always right”, Norway said, and Sweden gave him a long look before deciding that it wasn’t worth to fight that statement.

“Can you set a fire in the fireplace?” he instead asked, “it is getting colder here.” The autumn had already arrived and the first promises of harsh winter could be already felt in the wind and dark nights.

“Why me?”

“You are sitting closer”, Sweden said. Norway glanced up and nodded slightly.

“Fair enough”, he said, and without any clear movement or gesture the logs in the fireplace started to burn. The fire quickly brought warmth and light to the room.

“Also because you don’t need to get up for that”, Sweden muttered.

“It is not my fault I got all the skills, intelligence and beauty of this family”, Norway said and focused back on their plans. They had quite lot to discuss about and it was normal for them to stay up late only talking about how to best help Finland or help the movement to free Norway. Those two things kept them quite busy.

The evening would have gone just like all others with them discussing and working until late night forced them to go to sleep, if a loud nabbing from the window hadn’t alerted them. Norway was on his feet immediately, reaching for the knife that was the only weapon he was allowed to keep. Sweden’s reaction was much slower as he felt safe in his own land, but he too took his weapon and followed the Norwegian.

“A puffin?” the Swede asked when he saw the bird sitting other side of the window and staring at them. He was surprised for a reason, because puffins rarely flew there and it was already too late for them to be around anyway.

“I know that one”, Norway muttered, sounding slightly worried when he placed the knife back to his belt and reached for the window hatch.

“It has a message with”, Sweden noted, completely accepting the fact that the Norwegian had claimed to know a bird. Norway nodded.

“Thank you”, he said and took the letter that had been rolled into small roll and tied on the puffin’s leg, “Sverige, I believe he will want some food. Could you call the kitchen?”

“Okay”, Sweden shrugged and went out to find a servant that would be still on duty that late. If he thought Norway’s request was weird, he didn’t mention that. It might have been also because last time he called the Norwegian weird, the said Norwegian turned his wine so bitter he couldn’t drink it. So he mostly just accepted things now on. When he came back, he found Norway cursing loudly and marching around the room while reading the letter.

“That hell-rotten idiot!” he muttered and let a long stream of curses, “I asked for one thing! One thing!”

“What?” Sweden asked, because he had been away only few minutes and it wasn’t often a completely calm man turned into furious rage in such short time.

“Danmark!” Norway yelled, “I will kill him.”

“I am going to give you a moment”, Sweden muttered and backed out of the room. He felt like that was the wisest decision he had done in months, because he could hear the Norwegian’s rage far away and it didn’t sound good. When he came back almost hour later, Norway had calmed down only enough to be able to write without staining the whole paper with ink. He was still muttering curses under his breath and his hand made scratched to the paper when he wrote, so angry he was. The bird was still there and enjoyed the treats some remarkable brave servant had delivered.

“Just wait until I am free”, Norway muttered between the worst insults he just knew, “I am going to let him know what I think, oh I am so going to let him know. Leaving my brother alone, when I specifically asked him to take care of everything… that half-brained joke of man!”

“I assume it wasn’t anything good?” Sweden said and got a bad look from Norway.

“Danmark”, Norway explained while writing, “has been fool enough to not do as I asked him to do and now my brother is hurt, alone and miserable!”

“Uh…”

“Don’t just stand there”, Norway said, “tell me all the worst words you know. That man deserves to hear all of them.” Sweden might have been slightly terrified in front of Norway’s anger, even if it wasn’t directed toward him for once, but he had never passed a chance to insult the Dane so he sat down and helped the best he could.

When the letter was ready, the night was already turning slowly into morning and still Norway had enough anger left to curse the Dane’s name.

“I trust you will take this directly to Island”, he said while tying the letter on Puffin’s leg, “Danmark better hear my words and be a real man, or, gods be my witness, I will show him the real fear next time I see him.”

“Are you sure that puffin is a good messenger?” Sweden asked, because he had never before heard about tame puffins or anybody attempting to use them for letter delivering, “it can find Island?”

“Of fucking course I can find him”, the bird replied, “well, so long, assholes!” He took few steps and flew off, leaving two nations watching after him. Sweden nodded and glanced at the Norwegian.

“That bird spoke”, he said.

“Yes, that he does”, Norway replied, “I just hope he would control his language better around Island.”

*******

  
“Hey, kid”, Puffin said and landed on the Island’s shoulder, “you still doing okay?”

“Puffin! You are back!” Iceland said happily, “how was it? Did you find my brother?” He had waited every day for the bird to come back and the week had been long for him. There wasn’t too much for him to do and after that one day he had started to avoid Denmark even more. He only brought the man food and did whatever he asked him to do. It wasn’t much.

“Hard fly in this weather, but I made it”, Puffin said and reached his leg, “here. He sent this back. Get it off so I can go to eat something. I don’t know what those freaking Swedes do for their herrings but that taste… ugh.” Iceland nodded, happy to hear his brother had even replied to him, and he took the message. Puffin left immediately, but Iceland didn’t worry about that. He would also be hungry after so long flight, if he could fly.

He was quite disappointed when he rolled out the message and noticed it was full of those runes he couldn’t read, but there was also shorter message for him.

_Island,_

_I am devastated to hear what is happening there. I am sorry about all of this. Stay strong, my brother. I will make everything better. Give this letter to Danmark and make sure he reads it. I have enclosed some of my… thoughts in it._

_I still advice you to stay where you are. Even if it turned out the Dane have betrayed my trust, it is the safest place for you right now. Keep me updated and I will do all I can._

_Until we see again,_   
_Noregur_

_p.s. Indeed my ways to make a fire in the fireplace are quite extraordinary, I apologize I never thought to show you the proper way. From your description it sounds like you are missing the smaller kindling you can use to help the fire become bigger. Try to find small pieces of wood or paper that you can place under and around the logs. Start the fire on those and carefully feed the smaller pieces in the fire. Fire has to be strong enough before it can caught on bigger logs! Try that few times and let me know if it worked._

Iceland nodded happily. he had never tried that so he was now sure he would manage to make the fire. It had been a good idea to write to Norway and ask, he thought while making his way back to the mansion. He didn’t feel very good about going in to Dane’s room, but Norway had told him to deliver the letter directly and that he was going to do.

“Sir Danmörk?” he asked and pushed the door open. Denmark was awake, but he was laying down quietly and staring at the ceiling.

“What?” he asked without looking at the Icelander.

“You have post.”

“This early?” he asked, because it was an early morning and usually the courier visited after lunch.

“Yes, sir”, Iceland said, “it is from my brother.” That didn’t seem to make the Dane as happy as it had made Iceland. He sighed, rubbed his eyes and looked miserable.

“I told you to stop that already”, he complained, “Norge is…”

“No, it is from him!” Iceland said stubbornly and trying to not think about being scared right then, “listen!” He started to read the runes as well he could even if it didn’t seem to make any sense. He just assumed that if Norway wrote to Denmark like that, the Dane should be able to understand too. First Denmark looked very confused, but then he frowned and reached his hand.

“Give it to me”, he ordered, sounding shocked but also strangely happy. Iceland stopped reading and gave the letter to the Dane. After that he had honour to witness rather strange scene that didn’t really made sense for him. First Denmark was excited and his eyes quickly scanned the text, then he frowned and seemed to read slower like he was making sure he got everything right, and finally he looked scared. So very scared that Iceland too felt scared because of that.

“Shit”, the Dane said, his hands shaking and voice sounding utterly scared. 


End file.
